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THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 


First published in January , 1914 


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THE 

DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 


BY 

WILLARD FRENCH 



NEW YORK 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1914 


Copyright, 1914, by 

The Neale Publishing Company 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 


CHAPTER I 

A LITTLE glove-button, — one of the old- 
fashioned kind, — completely upset me. 
It drove me from important research in one 
of London’s superb laboratories. It forced 
me into traveling almost fifty thousand miles, 
devoting years of life, — involuntarily and even 
unconsciously, — to the downfall of the devil. 
It quit my glove as I was leaving the club to 
catch a train on the London and Dover Road 
at two o’clock one stormy winter’s night. 
With the precaution not uncommon in bache- 
lors — near forty — I stopped to pick it up. A 
fellow going out behind passed me, taking the 
last cab waiting at the club stand. 

Common sense would have turned me back 
to the telephone, but obstinacy is another pre- 
rogative of bachelors. Assuring myself that 
the joy was mine, I upped my umbrella, hur- 
ried along the Strand, shortcut the distance by 
climbing the stairs from Faringdon street, and 
came out at the lower end of the Holborn Via- 
duct bridge. 


5 


6 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

The solitude was appalling. Besides the 
rain it was the one hour when London sleeps, 
— between late cabs and early carts. Not a 
living thing was anywhere. The wet street 
glistened like ice in the glimmer of the lamps. 
Across the bridge stood the dripping bronze 
groups of Commerce and Agriculture. The 
illuminated clock, beyond the tower of City 
Temple, looked like a fog-soaked moon. Be- 
yond the bridge blinked the four lights about 
the equestrian figure at the end of the Viaduct. 
In the opposite direction a blurred glow indi- 
cated the front of the railway station. 

A cab swung suddenly in between me and 
the four lights. It swayed, and against the 
lights I could see the driver’s arm as he lashed 
the horse. Both horse and cab were rubbered, 
for they made little noise; but as they ap- 
proached me one of the windows burst with a 
startling crash, followed by a woman’s half- 
stifled scream. It behooved me to leap for 
the horse’s head and catch the bit; but I did it 
so drastically that on the slippery pavement he 
went down in a heap, taking me with him, 
flinging the driver from his seat, — pretty well 
killing him, — and demolishing things gener- 
ally. It was a bungling job, for I was much 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 7 

better accustomed to chemical complications; 
and extricating myself, rather shamefaced, 
from the front of the wreck, I saw two men 
and a woman emerging from the back of it. 
One of the men said: 

• “No noise now. Don’t shoot. Break his 
damned neck for him.” 

I was unmixing my foot from the lash of the 
driver’s whip, and taking the hint, I gave the 
heavy handle a quick swing, bringing the solid 
butt fair on the hatless head approaching me. 
The man dropped, and the other, finding it too 
late for precaution, fired several shots at me. 
He did not realize, — nor did I, — that they 
reached the mark; for as I upped the whip 
again, and made for him, he left the woman 
and ran. She was gagged. As I pushed the 
cloth from her mouth she said, calmly: 

“Will you kindly unbind my hands?” 

I tried to, but my fingers were numb, so I 
knelt and took one end of the cord in my teeth. 
As the knot loosened I started to stand up, but 
the next I knew was some weeks later, in a 
hospital. 


CHAPTER II 


W HEN returning consciousness set my 
will to work I made a quick recovery, 
for I was beautifully nursed by gentle-fin- 
gered, soft-voiced things in white, with never 
less about a patient to retard convalescence. I 
had no family anxieties nor fear that any one 
could usurp my laboratory. I was not even 
curious about the Viaduct incident, — about 
the woman, or how she got out of the mess, or 
how she got into it. Yet there was something 
constantly hectoring me. My eyes would 
persistently remain fixed on the door of my 
room. Whoever opened it gave me a pang of 
disappointment till, after several days, the 
pang changed to a sudden and most discon- 
certing thrill. 

To realize one’s divinity after near forty 
years of Eveless Eden must in any case be dif- 
ferent from the discovery when Youth and 
Love are hand-in-hand upon an eager quest; 
but this was altogether different. It was a 
disruption of all my arrangements, and I re- 
8 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 9 

sented it. A bachelor, — especially a chemical 
laboratory bachelor, — falls easily into prear- 
ranged methods; and not only was this some- 
thing not in my formula, but, to the contrary, 
in it was my firm conviction that women were 
not very safely to be loved, if peace of mind 
was a desirable contingent. 

The fact is the woman was so divinely right 
that through the mists of delirium my eyes had 
learned to watch for her and my soul to wait 
for her. They had taken advantage of my 
helplessness to defy the cardinal convictions of 
my Jife, and it angered me. Instantly I set 
myself to correcting the error and studied her 
carefully, to that end, as she approached. She 
wore a matron’s badge, but her uniform was 
even simpler than the nurses’. She had a 
glorious figure, grandly controlled. Her face 
was an artist’s dream. She had wonderful 
eyes. To see them was to forget the rest, — 
only that it would not be forgotten. The glow 
of health in her face was richer and darker 
because it was crowned by an irrepressible mass 
of hair, — snow white, — scintillating as white 
clouds scintillate at sunrise. She was entirely 
too young for it. Something drastic must 
have accomplished it; but the wrath of God 


IO THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

was praising Him, for it enhanced her beauty. 
The outlook was discouraging, and I shut my 
eyes. When she sat down by my cot I turned 
my head away. She touched my forehead. 
I could have bitten the hand, — or kissed it 
frantically. She spoke. The voice was like 
the woman; but it was simply a duty speech, 
because she was head nurse. Stroking my 
forehead she said: 

“At last you are well on the way to recov- 
ery. It was a hard fight, but you fought it 
splendidly. Your grand constitution and 
your strong will pulled you through. You 
will soon be as sound and as well as ever in 
your life. Your courage saved a woman in a 
serious plight. She is waiting till you are well 
enough to listen, to try to put her gratitude in 
words.” 

As roughly as I could I said: “I am not 
responsible if what I happened to do acci- 
dentally helped a woman. I prefer not to see 
her.” 

My ears followed her as she went away. 
She spoke in a whisper to the nurse and the 
nurse replied, “Yes, Madam.” It was not till 
long afterward, and far away, that I learned, 
by accident, that she had any other name. I 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE u 


could have torn my eyes out that they obeyed 
me and remained shut till she was gone. Yet 
what did it signify? Open or shut they saw 
nothing else. Beautiful woman can accept no 
less than adoration from man, and man can 
offer nothing more. To have men fall at her 
feet was doubtless a common experience. 
The rebellious way in which I fell may have 
amused her; but the fact that I fell at all un- 
utterably disconcerted me. 

But as persistently as before every nerve in 
me waited on that door, and disappointment 
on whomever opened it; for she did not come 
again till I was practically well, dressed and 
sitting in an armchair at an open window, try- 
ing to utilize the incoming spring to drive out 
my thoughts of her. Then the door opened 
and without turning I knew that it was she. 
I heard the nurse go out, leaving us alone. 
I would not look, but my hands clutched the 
arms of the chair lest they fly to meet her. I 
knew that it was only another duty call, to tell 
me that I was to be discharged; and of all 
things earthly I did not want to leave the hos- 
pital. The thought of life where I could not 
watch that door was misery. I dreaded wak- 
ing in the morning to find myself somewhere 


12 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

else. Leaning on the back of my chair and 
touching my forehead, she said: 

“The doctors will let you go home in the 
morning. Your valet has been notified to 
have your rooms ready. A nurse will go with 
you for a week. Then you will be quite well 
again. I hurried to tell you the good news.” 

“It is not good news,” I said, rather sul- 
lenly. 

“It is pleasant when patients like the hos- 
pital,” she said; but I interrupted, “I am not 
thinking of the hospital.” 

To my confusion she replied, “I am only a 
part of the hospital.” And after a moment 
she added: “It would be so much pleasanter 
— for me — if you went away thinking life 
brighter and better worth living, instead. 
Remember your work, — how much you have 
accomplished for the world and how much 
more you have to do. Think of what you 
would say to another man who let thoughts 
of a nurse at a hospital disturb him.” 

She was usurping arguments that I had 
worn threadbare. It only tempted me to drop 
them. 

“You do not belong here. You should not 
be here,” I said. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 13 

“It is my world, my sphere,” she answered 
quickly. “I am only happy when trying to 
make others happy, relieving their suffer- 
ings.” 

I tried to rise, but she laid her hands on my 
shoulders. 

“Till to-morrow you are my patient and 
must obey,” she said. 

“But you do not understand me!” I ex- 
claimed. 

“I understand,” she said, quietly. 

“But I love you,” I whispered, catching her 
hand and pressing it to my lips. 

“I know it,” she said. “And I am sorry.” 

“You mean because I am your patient? Be- 
cause it is what no patient of yours could help 
doing?” I was angry. 

“I shall go away if you talk like that,” she 
said gently. “Listen, and I will tell you how 
I know. While you were very ill I was in 
here a great deal ; for there were reasons why 
I was most anxious that nothing should be 
missed which could call you back to life. A 
hundred times when you were half-conscious 
you told me that you loved me. I do not be- 
lieve that it is a word you have often spoken, 
and I believe that it means more to you than to 


i 4 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

many. But I knew that if you had been well 
and conscious, you would not have let your- 
self come near to thinking it, — much less 
to saying it. I knew that when you were 
yourself again for your life’s sake you would 
combat it, and to help you to conquer yourself 
I kept away when you were out of danger. 
It would be different if I could love.” 

“I am not a fool,” I interrupted. “I am not 
bidding you love me. Of course you do not 
love me. I am only telling you that from now 
on I shall live in the one hope that some day 
you will — 

“Hush! hush!” she whispered. “Never! 
. . . Never think that thought again. There 
is good reason why I would not hurt you. It 
is not my wish. Only it is true. I cannot 
love.” 

“You mean that you cannot love me?” 

“Love any one.” 

“Because you love some one already? Be- 
cause you are—” 

“No, no. I do not love any one. I am not 
married. Don’t ask me more. If you under- 
stood you would know that it is true. Simply 
I cannot love.” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 15 

“That is absurd. A woman as lovable as 
you would not be incapable of loving.” 

“It is not absurd. Pity me for it if it will 
help you; but please believe me and respect 
me.” 

“What do you mean by ‘respect’ you?” I 
asked. For she seemed to give the word a 
special significance ; and it came from her lips 
with a sob. 

“I mean by wholly ignoring me after you 
leave the hospital,” she said; “unless a time 
should come when I could render you some 
service which does not pertain to love. Re- 
spect me as one who is dead, — whose memory 
is a pleasant ray of sunshine to brighten dark 
hours for you. Respect me as a white rose, 
without a thorn, which would fill the air with 
fragrance for you whenever you need it most.” 

Her voice seemed wet with tears, and I re- 
plied: “I will. But I will do it to prove to 
you that I love you. And by my love, if I 
can merit it, you shall yet come to me with 
open arms and say to me, ‘Beloved, I can love 
you now.’ ” 

Then, for an instant of ecstatic Paradise, 
one beatific glow from Heaven flashed, — one 


16 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

glorious glint of blue where black clouds 
broke. Her lips touched my forehead. 

I sat alone in the open window till the nurse 
brought in my lunch, with a perfect, fragrant, 
spotless^ unresponsive white rose lying on the 
tray. As I took it up I noticed that the stem 
was without a thorn. 

The next morning, making his farewell call, 
the doctor told me that a dozen times over I 
owed my life to the incessant watchfulness of 
the head nurse; but he warned me that if I 
mentioned it in any way to her it would be 
most offensive. That was all. It was only a 
score for the glove-button. 


CHAPTER III 


B ACK in my quarters, back in the labora- 
tory, back in the fever of living, there 
was nothing new but two scars, where bullets 
found their way into me, and a faded white 
rose without a thorn, — faded, all but its fra- 
grance, its astral, subconscious fragrance. 
But that fragrance would mysteriously fill the 
air, regardless of my occupation, making my 
heart throb and my brain stand still, while I 
felt and saw only the woman I worshiped. 
Its recurrence increased till I was sinking into 
a state of mental uselessness. Sleeping or 
waking I saw only that superbly beautiful 
face. The melody of her voice was in every- 
thing. Everything whispered to me of her. 
And when at length I found myself haunting 
the streets about the hospital at night, to be 
nearer her, I rose in wrath and said to myself, 
‘Til take you so far away that you will have 
to brace up and be a man.” 

The result was a passage on a slow tramp 
steamer on the longest voyage available. 
17 


18 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

There I tried to reason with myself, but there 
was no reason in me. Everything whispered 
to me of her. First the gulls followed us, — 
mottled and striped, with creamy breasts and 
plaintive cries, down-swooping almost to my 
touch or hovering strong and still above me, 
bending their heads in fearless confidence to 
look down at me, so near, so unapproachable, 
— whispering to me of her. Then the brown 
cape ducks took their place, with dark wings 
almost touching the waves as they rose and 
fell with them, in absolute self-reliance, — 
whispering of her. After them came Mother 
Carey’s Chickens, long-winged, silver-tipped, 
stormy petrels, laughing in weird chirps at 
the raging monsoon, — atoms in immensity, but 
masters still, — whispering of her. Then fly- 
ing fish all alone gleamed and glistened, 
bronze-winged silver darts shot from the sun- 
shine for an instant and disappeared, — whis- 
pering of her. Then nothing anywhere for 
long tropical days but the cloudless sky and 
the waveless sea; and the ship, cradled and 
caressed on that perfect but passionless breast, 
because in its helplessness it was there, seemed 
a picture of myself — and of her. Then up 
from the south came the great majestic alba- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 19 

tross to meet us; his monstrous wings always 
stretched motionless upon the air, gliding 
swift as an arrow, high or low, backward or 
forward, regardless of the way of the wind 
and without a tremor of exertion, in imper- 
turbable sovereignty of the air, — whispering 
to me of her. 

When I went ashore at length it was simply 
because the out-voyage was over and I must 
wait for the steamer to return. Nothing was 
gained and the persistent hint of a mental 
breakdown was torturing me. Mightily I 
longed for some friend upon whom I could 
lean for a moment, while he laughed me, — or 
even kicked me, — into common sense. Soli- 
tude is the acme of agony to one who has be- 
come for himself bad company. Till then I 
had rather enjoyed my own society and little 
ever disturbed me; but after an hour in my 
room at the hotel the great bell of the Post- 
office clock, booming the quarter hours to eter- 
nity, drove me frantically to the street. There, 
drifting with the crowd, I presently found my- 
self at the entrance to the great Town Hall. 
It was Good Friday night, and the huge place 
was filling for a philharmonic concert. The 
construction of the hall was peculiar, Two 


20 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

broad aisles crossed each other at right angles, 
four-quartering the place. I was given an 
end seat in the front row of a rear section. 
Diagonally across from me, the next to the end 
seat in the last row of a front section was occu- 
pied by nothing less than a monstrosity. 

No wonder the seats on either side were 
vacant. It was a lad of sixteen or so, — just 
a mass of wriggling muscles. His long, thin 
fingers were tangled up in knots. With a 
Squirming fist he held a program on his knee 
and turned the pages by pawing it with the 
other fist. That he turned them intelligently 
was the more astonishing because the opening 
part was the Stabat Mater and the lines were 
in Latin. His large brown eyes rolled about 
in an agony which made them seem the win- 
dows of a lost soul in torment. His face and 
even his scalp were constantly twitching. 

It is cruel, but there’s a fascination in watch- 
ing such an unfortunate, and I could not dis- 
tract my attention till late arrivals, — two 
gentlemen and a lady, — came toward me from 
a side entrance, to turn up the center aisle. 
The gentleman and lady in advance were of 
sufficient importance to cause considerable 
commotion; but my eyes fastened irresistibly 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 21 


on the man who followed them. At the close 
of the concert I asked the doorman who he 
was. Without a moment’s hesitation the man 
replied: “A stranger in the city, sir. I never 
saw him but once before, — some years ago, at 
a function in this same hall. He came to- 
night with Lord and Lady Annandale.” 

The man could not have told how it was 
that he remembered him so well, nor could I 
have told what it was about him that caught 
and held my attention. He was athletic in 
build, with dark hair touched with gray, heavy 
eyebrows and mustache, and quick, dark eyes. 
His face was strong and agreeable. But he 
impressed me most as a reservoir of potential 
energy. A startling sense of acquaintance 
came to me at the first glance, though I was 
sure that I had never seen the face before. 
Then the contrast between him and the mon- 
strosity recalled the latter, and I thought: “If 
you would only sit down in that end seat you 
might lend some of your surplus nerve power 
to the poor fellow across the aisle. Let him 
but touch the hem of your garment, and — ” 

My thoughts were suddenly checked, for 
just as the man turned up the center aisle he 
hesitated, looked at the wriggling thing, and 


22 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

sat down beside him. Immediately, however, 
he became absorbed in the concert, without 
the slightest indication that he was conscious 
of the other’s existence, though it came wrig- 
gling nearer and nearer till it was literally 
nestling under an arm which, purely for his 
own comfort, he had thrown over the back of 
the next chair. And gradually the contor- 
tions subsided till the lad, motionless from toes 
to finger tips, lay pathetically against the 
strong form. His thin, white hands rested on 
his knees. A smooth, pale face, with parted 
lips and beautiful brown eyes, showed the 
keenest appreciation of the prima donna that 
was singing. The head sank upon the stran- 
ger’s shoulder as if the cup of comfort was run- 
ning over. But the stranger watched the 
prima donna, returning in response to a recall, 
as if there was nothing else in the world worth 
while. She sang, as encore, a song which was 
new then and had not lost the best of its beauty 
in its own fatal popularity. She sang “The 
Holy City,” and the vast audience sat breath- 
less as the clear contralto reveled in the grand 
refrain, — 

“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Lift up your gates and sing 
Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna — ” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 23 

A shudder, not like a nerve tremor, but fierce 
and strong, shook the man I was watching. 
It was like the way men cringe in the clutch of 
death, as I have seen them dying on the battle- 
field. For the first time he showed a con- 
sciousness of his companion. No mother ever 
touched a baby’s curl more tenderly than he 
lifted the lad’s head from his shoulder and left 
it resting on the back of the chair. Then he 
dragged himself to his feet and staggered to 
the door. As he turned into the aisle I caught 
one glimpse of his face. Great God ! that any- 
thing in Heaven, earth, or hell could have pro- 
duced that transformation. It had in it all 
the horror that an hour before was in the eyes 
of the monstrosity. It sent wild thoughts of 
mystic theories of vicarious suffering flashing 
through my brain. 

When I looked again at the lad across the 
aisle his eyes were fixed in a vacant stare, like 
some one waking from a dream. A cringe 
contracted his face. A spasm twisted his body 
and the lost soul, — devil or what, — returned, 
as the great hall rang with that last triumphant 
strain, — 

“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Sing, for the night is o’er! 

Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna forevermore.” 


CHAPTER IV 


I T was no less a miracle for me than for the 
lad. For an hour at least my brain had 
been free from that haunting whisper; and I 
realized an intense desire to lean on the man, 
as the boy had leaned, till I, too, had regained 
my self-control. By nature I am the farthest 
in the world from the leaning kind, but it took 
such a hold on me that when I saw him on the 
street, on Easter morning, I almost ran to over- 
take him. As I came up behind him a woman, 
just ahead, was turning into the Cathedral, 
dragging after her a child which was evidently 
a hopeless idiot; and the thought went through 
my brain : 

“Idiots fascinate you as you fascinate me. 
You have strength to give away. They need 
it; so do I, in my present condition. You 
don’t want to go in there, nor do I ; but you 
will follow that boy and I shall follow you.” 

It proved quite correct; for after a linger- 
ing, rather reluctant puff he threw away a 
cigarette and entered the Cathedral. I found 

24 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 25 

him sitting on a bench close under the pulpit, 
with the boy between him and the mother, and 
I secured for myself a secluded place behind 
a pillar, shutting off any view of the pulpit, 
but giving me an opportunity to watch the 
three. 

Feeling sure that I was about to witness an- 
other miracle, I studied the child, that I might 
fully appreciate it. It was one of the rather 
frequent cases of congenital deformity, where 
the skull was too small for the brain to de- 
velop. There was an expressionless, fat face, 
with a shapeless little mouth from which the 
tongue protruded, apparently from lack of 
room inside. The eyes were so deeply buried 
that they could open only wide enough to dis- 
close the pupils drawn together, evidently of 
little use in seeing things. The mother was 
one of the tired, threadbare, working kind, 
who loved her boy with animal instinct, and 
had dragged him to the Cathedral for the 
Easter mass, hoping there might be some 
resurrection grace, even for him. In her si- 
lent prayer her hand moved toward him as 
if she were trying to point him out to One 
supposed to see the sparrow fall and to order 
all things well. The man sat absolutely im- 


26 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

passive; yet twice I saw the seat beyond va- 
cated by men who had grown pale and rest- 
less there, and who left it with expressions of 
fear. When the procession came down the 
aisle the priests and choristers singled him out 
and bent their heads to stare at him, for the 
moment forgetting the chant. The mother 
felt it, too. She glanced toward the child, 
but his head was turned away from her. She 
shivered, crossed herself, and, kneeling, buried 
her face in her hands, on her book and beads. 

The man alone seemed utterly unconcerned. 
He was all-absorbed in watching the head of 
his cane, as he turned it slowly half way round 
and back again. And then the miracle. The 
boy’s tongue disappeared and his lips parted 
in something like a smile. A fat little hand 
gently patted the stranger’s knee, and two eyes, 
— not open very wide, but steady and straight, 
—looked up into his face. And still he sat 
watching the head of his uneasy cane, as if it 
was the only thing in the world worth while. 

Hearing the voice of the priest in the pulpit 
beyond the pillar, I closed my eyes, to help 
me fix my attention on the sermon. N aturally 
the text was : “I am the Resurrection and the 
Life.” In slumbrous periods he repeated as- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 27 

sertions which have only changed enough to 
meet the fashions of changing ages, since first 
the consolations of Christianity began to tor- 
ture stricken souls. Soon he was saying: 

“All things emanate from Almighty God, 
and are according to His infinite pleasure, 
whether to break in pieces or to make whole. 
In His boundless love He visits the iniquity 
of the fathers upon the children, to the third 
and fourth generation. Those whom He lov- 
eth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son in 
whom His soul delighteth. Dearly beloved 
brethren, are any of you afflicted? Remem- 
ber, it is by God’s kind hand and by His lov- 
ing will, and but an evidence of His eternal 
love; the wise and holy means by which He 
would call you from the gall of bitterness and 
the bonds of iniquity to the bosom of His 
blessed Son, our Lord, who died for us that we 
may live, and rose again to be our resurrection 
and our life.” 

My mental comment was painfully inele- 
gant. For it I blush ; but applying the words 
to the boy who was most in my mind, I said to 
myself: “What rot! If that fellow who 
seems so capable of miracles would take his 
eyes from his cane and fix them on the priest, 


28 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

I wonder if he could not drive some sense into 
the sermon.” But the discourse ran on: 

“Human hands cannot help you. It is only 
through the grace of God that you can find 
relief. And whatever may be your affliction, 
as His minister I charge you, on this blessed 
Easter morning, to put your faith in — ” 

There was a sudden pause. It startled me 
into opening my eyes. They rested full upon 
the stranger. His cane was still. He was 
evidently looking at the priest. Then, almost 
instantly, the word which followed the pause, 
making it just a little more emphatic, was 
“Science.” 

It gave me an uncanny chill, for mentally 
running ahead of him in his stilted sentences, 
knowing of course that “God” was the word 
which was coming next, and thinking still of 
the mother and the child, I had said to myself, 
“How much better it would be if he would 
tell them to put their faith in science.” 

After that the sermon lacked the easy swing 
of pulpit oratory, and as it limped along the 
same uncanny impression continued, as if I 
half knew, in advance, what each new word 
would be. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 29 

“Science is the voice of Omnipotence to 
men,” he said, “the only delineator of the di- 
vine. Science is God, — the God that lifts 
from afflicted humanity the cloak of suffering, 
that conquers the curses of heredity and res- 
cues from evil the offspring of parentally- 
broken law. Nature is full of accidents and 
blunders, — the inexorable effects of overreach- 
ing law, — and science alone can guide and 
curb and rectify these energies, making Na- 
ture always beneficent. Omniscience is omni- 
science, the substance of omnific truth. It 
tells the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the sick 
and halt to take up their beds and walk. It 
depends upon no faith-demanding fabrications 
nor theories of an unknown god. It rests upon 
the foundation of reality, to bring ignorance 
away from its errors, calling us out of darkness 
into the glorious light of truth which makes us 
free. It places us in intelligent harmony with 
that which was and is and ever shall be, for 
body and soul alike, the resurrection and the 
life, redeeming our lives from destruction by 
saying, ‘Return from depravity, ye children of 
men.’ He that hath ears to hear let him hear. 
Amen.” 


3 o THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

I wondered if the preacher knew who 
preached his sermon, — or if that strange man 
knew any more than he seemed to know about 
the boy beside him, or the other miracle. As 
the sermon closed he whispered something to 
the mother. It frightened her and she crossed 
herself. He repeated it. She caught the 
boy’s face in her hands and turned it toward 
her. Then she uttered a faint cry, and with 
her arm about the boy she fell upon her knees, 
pressing her lips to her book and beads. Lack- 
ing the boy’s instinct to turn her eyes or stretch 
her hand toward him who had done it, she 
was devoutly thanking God, as she had been 
taught. It was harmless, so far as she was 
concerned; but it was most unfortunate for 
the boy, who was not prepared for the rude 
awakening, and in a moment he hung on her 
arm as helpless as before. 

Suddenly the woman ceased thanksgiving 
when the stranger shook her by the shoulder 
and repeated his question. She answered it, 
however, and he wrote the answer on his cuff, 
with a gold leadpencil. 

While he was writing the choir began Lu- 
ther’s “Resurrection Hymn.” Suddenly his 
face contracted with agony, as it had at the 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 31 

concert, and apparently groping his way he 
left the Cathedral, while the grand arches 
echoed back the triumphant shout, “Hosanna 
in the highest! in the highest!” 


CHAPTER V 


W ALKING home, I realized that not the 
least remarkable feature was the facil- 
ity with which the distorted face was forgot- 
ten, and the way the natural face remained, 
with all its fascination. I could only remem- 
ber the calm authority which said, “Peace, be 
still,” to the troubled soul at the concert; 
“Rise up and walk,” to the shrouded brain in 
the Cathedral; and “Lazarus, come forth!” 
to the sepulchred instincts, entombed in the 
pulpit. But reason as I would I only came 
back to the old question of the fishers of Ca- 
pernaum: “What manner of man is this?” 

It might have dropped there but that Fate, 
— or the glove-button, — had further plans for 
me; and, accordingly, after a brief respite, I 
fell again a victim to that haunting memory, — 
much as the two, and doubtless the preacher, 
fell back to their old estates when he left them, 
— and the longing for his help returned in a 
mad resolve to find him. It only stimulated 
the desire when, a day or two later, I read in 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 33 

a newspaper that Richard Morton, M.D., 
with several clusters of letters following, after 
performing almost a miracle upon Lord An- 
nandale’s daughter, had sailed for his home, 
some thousand miles away. The paper an- 
nounced the complete recovery of the patient, 
who had long been a helpless paralytic and 
had been recently pronounced hopelessly in- 
sane. It congratulated his excellency that his 
persistent importunity, backed by a fee 
amounting to a small fortune, had at last se- 
cured the celebrated physician’s services. 
Parenthetically it remarked upon the Doctor’s 
eccentric character, that had his patient been 
poor and he obliged to pay even his own trav- 
eling expenses, she would doubtless have re- 
ceived earlier attention. 

Postponing my return trip, — which I was 
heartily dreading, — I booked by the first 
steamer following the Doctor. And the 
voyage itself, with an object, proved such a 
helpful distraction that, on arriving at a hotel 
at my destination, I was chiefly conscious of 
curiosity in asking the clerk if a Dr. Morton 
resided in the city. 

The absurdity of the question threw him 
into a coughing fit, — he was more or less con- 


34 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

sumptive anyway, — but he kept his watering 
eyes fixed upon my cranium. When he could 
speak he said: 

“Turn to your left, sir, on going out. Take 
your third street to the left, and he is on your 
first left-hand corner. Fine stone house, high 
above the street, — can’t miss it. High stone 
wall, — retaining wall. ‘Muckross’ cut in the 
arch above the gate; ‘Morton, M.D.’ on a 
small brass plate. Office entrance round the 
corner on the side street.” 

Waving me on with his left hand, he went 
coughing down the hall. Then Colonel War- 
den, the proprietor, came up with professional 
courtesy, and began politely probing for the 
business that brought me there. Incidentally 
I remarked that I did not even know the name 
of a mortal within a thousand miles, except 
that I had once read something in a newspaper 
about a Dr. Morton, residing there. 

Instantly his eyes fastened on the upper 
part of me, his left hand emerged from his 
pocket, and — but a look in my eyes checked 
him before he began about three lefts, and a 
high stone wall, with “Morton, M.D.” on a 
small brass plate, and an office entrance round 
the corner. He simply said: 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 35 

“There’s few who know less of us. Morton 
is one of the wonders of the world. You 
never met him? You ought to. Stop a bit. 
Perhaps I can bring it about.” 

He stepped to a telephone and I overheard: 
“No, indeed, Kate. No one is dying. Don’t 
wake him up. I have a friend here, — a for- 
eigner. I want him to meet the Doctor, and 
I’m taking him to the club to-night for that 
purpose. Ring me up, will you, if you find 
out later that he is not to be there? That’s 
all.” 

I felt myself in luck till, on the way to the 
club, Colonel Warden remarked: “We may 
find him at pool, smashing cues and cursing 
like a pirate. Sometimes he plays like the 
Devil let loose, and again he can’t hit his own 
ball. They will tell you it’s whisky, and 
chloral, and morphia, and Heaven only knows 
what not; for his head is just high enough 
above the rest to make it a good mark for 
sour ones to shy at. But wait till you know 
him, and you’ll not believe a word of it, even 
if he says it of himself, — which he very likely 
will.” 

Only then it dawned on me that I had based 
the whole assumption for my mad journey on 


36 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

the random guess that a face that I had seen 
in the city and a name in the newspaper per- 
tained to one and the same man. This Mor- 
ton, M.D., was evidently a renowned cranium 
specialist, while the man I had watched was 
probably only an adept at some black art ne- 
cromancy. Nevertheless, he was the man I 
was after, and a better disappointed being 
never climbed the broad stairs of that sumptu- 
ous clubhouse. To emphasize the point, a 
voice came through an open door above us, 
exclaiming: 

“Jumping Moses! You’re a live wire, 
boy.” 

And, nudging me, Colonel Warden whis- 
pered: “That’s Morton at a game. You go 
in and watch him through. It’s worth it. 
I’ll come in later and introduce you.” 

I entered the billiard-room simply to escape 
further conversation; for there was no one on 
earth that I cared less to meet than this cele- 
brated Morton. But all the occupants of the 
room were gathered about one table, watching 
one man, and through the crowd I caught a 
glimpse of the face from the Cathedral and 
the concert hall, bending over the pool table. 
His coat was off and his cuffs and tie. His 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 37 

waistcoat was unbuttoned and so was his col- 
lar at the throat. His hair fell rakishly over 
his forehead and a cigarette dangled loosely 
between his lips. My heart sank, and I 
dropped on the nearest bench till I could 
gather myself together and go out. But a 
strange thing happened. 

As I watched the man I began to realize 
the same indefinable charm in the boisterous 
hilarity as in the solemnity of the Cathedral 
and at the concert. He was still as unlike 
other men. In original compounds of super- 
lative speech he berated a pocket for dodging 
to escape his ball; and later I saw him, after a 
ruinous shot, vent his chagrin in an exhibition 
of his herculean strength, twisting the offend- 
ing cue as if it had been made of straw. But 
his “cursing” was almost classical, and it was 
worth the value of a cue to see him “smash” 
it. He drank, too; and as Colonel Warden 
had warned me, his friends were confoundedly 
ready to say, behind his back, that he drank 
beyond all reason. They knew, for they were 
always helping him — at all but providing the 
material. And they were mathematically 
and grammatically correct. But the most 
imaginative of them would hardly have ven- 


38 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

tured to assert that they had ever seen him ex- 
cited or bewildered by liquor. 

At the end of the game he said: “That re- 
minds me of a story,” and while they crowded 
about him to listen he held out one hand, and 
then the other, for a waiter to button on his 
cuffs. Then, tossing his tie about his neck, 
he left them laughing and came across the 
room toward me, trying to button his collar 
for himself. Just before reaching me he 
turned to the waiter, who was following with 
his coat, and, lifting his chin, said: “Will 
you kindly damn this thing for me — or but- 
ton it?” 

Turning to me when his tie was adjusted, 
holding his hands behind him for his coat, he 
said : “The inordinate obstinacy of inanimate 
things has delayed my welcoming you to our 
club. Being on a pleasure trip, you may lack 
friends in this corner of creation, and if you’ll 
allow me, I’ll put your name on our club 
guest-book. It gives you the luxuries without 
the responsibilities. My name is Morton, — 
M.D.” 

“Mine is Willard,” I said, taking his prof- 
fered hand under the impression that he must 
have seen me coming in with Colonel Warden. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 39 

Snapping his fingers for a waiter, he asked, 
“What shall we drink?” 

Remembering what I had heard, I made 
one of those laborious efforts to avoid reproach 
to present company while expressing a per- 
sonal habit of abstinence. He listened pa- 
tiently, then put it in a nutshell, remarking: 

“Teetotaler, but not prohibitionist, eh? I 
am precisely your opposite: a rank prohibi- 
tionist, but as far as possible from a teetotaler. 
To prevent the wrecks that liquor leaves 
stranded on the sands of time, I’d have its 
production prohibited. But I should want 
every existing drop stored in my wine cellar. 

“Hello, Warden,” he said, turning to my 
host, who was approaching directly behind 
him. “Didn’t my housekeeper say you were 
bringing a — a — what offshoot of Adam was 
it, now, that she called him? — oh, a foreigner, 
to the club to-night? Trot him out in a hurry, 
old man; for I have an appointment with a 
patient for half an hour ago.” 

“It was Mr. Willard I brought, Doctor,” the 
Colonel replied. “But it seems I’ve missed 
the introducing.” 

“Willard isn’t a foreigner,” the Doctor said, 
turning back to me. “And besides we are old 


4 o THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

friends — or we shall be by this time to-mor- 
row, for I want you to dine with me. Bache- 
lors. All alone. I’ll send my carriage for 
you at seven, sharp. Don’t fail me, for I want 
you to see my dog.” 

Turning again to Colonel Warden, he said: 
“I must be off now, or my patient will die of 
the disease instead of from the doctor, which 
is against all medical ethics. Bring out a new 
one next time, Warden. Willard and I met 
twice while I was away. Once at a philhar- 
monic concert, and again at high mass in the 
Cathedral.” 


CHAPTER VI 


A ND after all how much we resemble little 
paper boats, driven every way by puffs 
of lip-blown wind, over the deep blue sea in 
a wash-bowl. From the first it was evident 
enough that Dr. Morton possessed phenomenal 
hypnotic powers and clairvoyance, and such 
things were only natural adjuncts in the com- 
bination. When I thought that by mistake 
I had followed a great brain-doctor instead 
of a necromancer I was bitterly disappointed. 
But now these same qualities became most ob- 
noxious. I fancied they were only surface 
phenomena, which for some reason he was 
fond of exploiting; but I began to wonder 
where the limit of that knowledge lay, and to 
dread the idea of being alone with him. 

Chagrined by the apparent cowardice, I 
said to myself: “Suppose he can see things? 
What will it profit him, or injure me, if he 
reads every secret of my life?” Then a pre- 
monitory twinge warned me that there was one 
secret which I could not have him read, — that 
41 


42 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

a white rose without a thorn was enshrined 
upon an altar behind a closed door which no 
hand but hers should ever open. It was a 
sudden realization of the fact that I had ut- 
terly forsaken my original intent, and in the 
joy of being myself again it occurred to me as 
little as it did to the mother in the Cathedral 
to turn my eyes or stretch a hand toward him 
who had done it, — however unconsciously, — 
to us both. I felt as she did, like saying, 
“Thank God,” and letting Morton go his way, 
and I was as much afraid of him as she was. 

It might have personified retributive justice 
to have dropped me back again to need of 
him, but I understand now that the ulterior 
design of that glove-button only included my 
suffering as a means to an end; and the end 
was better accomplished in what actually hap- 
pened. I had come on a fool’s errand, but 
Morton was no less an interesting study, while 
I was better skilled in anthropological research 
than in handling love’s mysteries. I was fair 
at metaphysics, too, and a good analyst of 
pretty much everything but love. So I re- 
solved to remain a week or more, investigating 
the interesting freak until I understood him, 
through and through, — perfectly sure that by 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 43 

no chicanery or mental mirrors could he ever 
see in me anything I chose to hide ; then, strong 
and well again, I would go back to my labo- 
ratory, complete my work, and win the woman 
I worshiped. Admitting now the audacity 
of my presumption, I most humbly acknowl- 
edge it another score for the glove-button; 
but at the time I was thoroughly honest with 
myself, and the downfall of the Devil was 
not my conscious goal. 

On the stroke of seven there stopped at the 
entrance to the hotel a grand pair of bays, a 
stately automaton of a coachman, and a highly 
polished brougham, with an interior as versa- 
tile as its owner; but I had hardly begun to 
note its appropriate eccentricities when it 
drew up at an arched entrance in a high stone 
wall. “Muckross” was cut in the stone arch. 
“Morton, M.D.” was on a small brass plate, 
and under it was a notice that the office en- 
trance was around the corner. A broad flight 
of steps, cut out of the solid rock, wound up 
to a magnificent lawn, high above the street, 
in the center of which stood a great stone man- 
sion. Between life-size bronze figures I 
reached an inset veranda, where heavy carved 
oak doors were opened as I approached by 


44 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

one whom instinct told me was Kate, the Doc- 
tor’s housekeeper. She was merry and small, 
with crinkly black hair and Irish blue eyes: 
one upon whose right side it would obviously 
be well to keep if one hoped to prosper in any 
mission at Muckross. 

“Mr. Willard?” she said, looking me 
through and through in a way that made me 
cringe, notwithstanding my courageous in- 
clinations. “The Doctor was called to an 
accident and left word that the carriage should 
go for him at once if he had not returned 
when you arrived. Will you wait in the 
drawing-room, sir, or in the snuggery? You 
can smoke in the snuggery.” She was taking 
my hat and stick. 

“In the snuggery,” I said. The name was 
seductive; but so was a glimpse of the draw- 
ing-room through a tiled arch, between heavy 
portieres. The snuggery proved as different 
as a snuggery should be, yet so like it that it 
could be nothing else than its vis-a-vis, across 
the broad tiled hall. 

It was a large room, but so hung about with 
rare prints and paintings; so enveloped in oak- 
shelved books and robbed of its corners by 
marbles and bronzes; its tile floor so softened 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 45 

with oriental rugs, and temptingly littered 
with armchairs and divans; so suggestive 
of harmony, — philo-harmony, — in an organ 
built into the wall opposite the arched en- 
trance; so coaxingly encumbered with tables 
covered with books and magazines; so sug- 
gestively scented with the memory of burnt 
offerings in the pipe of peace; so hospitably 
erratic in the glow of bituminous blocks in a 
deep alcove of iron scrollwork at one end, and 
the brilliant vibrations of the setting sun 
flashing through a great circular stained glass 
window at the other end; so — everything that 
such a room could be or should be that, not- 
withstanding its enormous proportions, it was 
a perfect snuggery. 

Seating me with comfortable care, Kate 
placed a smoking-table beside me, remark- 
ing: “I am glad to hear that you do not 
drink, Mr. Willard, but I prepare what I call 
a temperance punch, with lime juice and bit- 
ters, sugar, soda, and ice, which is rather re- 
freshing and a good appetizer. I will fill a 
glass for you, if I may?” 

With it, she left me to my thoughts, which 
were that I had made a good beginning, but 
that I should be slow to gather hope; for those 


46 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

whose outer doors stand widest open are the 
more likely to keep the real treasures of the 
house in all-proof vaults. Then the stillness 
was broken by the rampant barking of a dog, 
mingled with the Doctor’s voice, saying: 

“In the snuggery, is he? That’s right. 
Now hurry along my lounging coat. What? 
Certainly I’ll wear my lounging coat. Didn’t 
I tell him it was strictly informal? O Dick! 
Suspend that address for a second. I have 
something to say myself. Listen. You go 
into the snuggery and tell Mr. Willard the 
rest of it. Give him your warmest welcome 
to Muckross, and say I will be there the mo- 
ment Kate produces my lounging coat, — and 
not before! Did you hear that, Kate? Go 
on into the snuggery, Dick. The snuggery! 
Go!” 

After a second of silence the click of tiny 
claws sounded on the tiles and under the arch 
there came — I don’t to this day feel sure that 
I know what, except that it was the Doctor’s 
Dick. It was just a bit of keen intelligence, 
built like a dog. On the threshold it paused, 
with head on-one side, and one forefoot in the 
air; a snow-white atom, with seal-brown eyes; 
a perfect little gentleman. But the ears were 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 47 

suggestively tilted, and the eyes rested thought- 
fully on — possibly it was imagination — on my 
cranium. And I believe, too, that the nose 
swerved a bit, as if to indicate that the office 
entrance was round the corner. After due 
deliberation his ears fell and he came grace- 
fully waltzing across the snuggery, wagging 
his — 

O Dick, forgive me. I know very well 
that you haven’t any tail. And confusion 
take whoever doubts your claim to having 
been born without one, just like other gentle- 
men. I was only referring to your way of 
expressing entire satisfaction by a vibratory 
motion of the osseous articulations at the ex- 
tremity of your spinal vertebrae, when your 
delicate haunches catch the oscillations and 
apparently wag. There, Dick. Is that satis- 
factory? 

Then, last of the trio, came the Doctor, in 
his lounging coat, with the announcement that 
dinner was served — and I was thankful, after 
all, that there was a table between us. Sub- 
jects of conversation sprang up with erratic 
diversity. On many of them I lacked a single 
lucid sentiment, but with all he seemed as 
familiar as with the streets of his own city. 


48 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

He impressed me as being a vitalized ency- 
clopedia, compared with which I seemed to 
myself a first year primer, so that was the more 
confusing when, lighting a cigarette, he said: 

“I’m not good at keeping sentiments to my- 
self, Willard. I feel like a miner who has 
just struck a grand pocket, and I want to ac- 
knowledge it. It’s a great thing for an oxi- 
dized cigarette-holder like me to come in con- 
tact with a man like you, who knows some- 
thing, and is not too badly conceited about it 
to let others learn.” And the most astonish- 
ing part of it was that he really thought and 
meant precisely what he said. 

“I am simply a good listener, Doctor,” I 
replied. “But that is really the best educator 
an intelligent brain can find. For an effort to 
tell what one knows that he knows always dis- 
closes volumes of latent information.” 

“Sophistry and sense are coordinate, but 
they are alternative,” he replied. “The soph- 
istry is yours. The facts and the floor are 
mine. No one knows everything; but the 
properly rounded man knows something about 
everything, and everything about something. 
Failing to be like you, — a sphere, — I would, 
if I could, be a true combination of right an- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 49 

gles, — a square, — neither narrowed by bigotry 
nor elongated by visionary theories. I would 
know all about one thing, — my profession. 
But knowledge is power. I should be dan- 
gerous to the world if I knew too much, for I 
realize its omnipotence. I believe that you 
do not, — though you taught me to realize 
it.” 

“I did what?” I asked. 

“Taught me to realize the omnipotence of 
knowledge.” 

“I do not understand you. What have I 
said?” 

“Nothing, here.” 

“Where, then? What do you refer to?” 

“To the Cathedral, on Easter Sunday.” 

“And to me?” 

“I say, Willard, when we are better ac- 
quainted we can talk more understandingly. 
For the present let me go on telling you of my 
ambition. When I was a boy I read that 
chapter on drugs which Collins makes ‘The 
Man Frosco’ write, and it set my soul on fire. 
It kept on burning till I held all my diplo- 
mas and degrees. Then I stopped and asked 
myself what it all amounted to. Only to a 
discovery of the weakness of the science; of 


50 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

the props which supported it; of the errors 
misguiding it; of the glare of chicanery giv- 
ing it a false glamour. The cresset burned 
farther beyond me than ever — and it is still 
far away.” Lighting a fresh cigarette he 
added: “Confession is good for the soul but 
it is bad for the reputation. Let’s try a tramp 
about the billiard table for an hour. What 
do you say to a game of billiards, Dick?” 

Sitting on the Doctor’s knee, Dick tossed 
his head, with a dainty sneeze which I soon 
learned expressed his entire approbation. 
“Then get about it, boy,” the Doctor added. 
“The billiard-room. Go on. Show Mr. 
Willard how you will some day climb the 
golden stairs to that happy hunting-ground 
where good little dogs have silver tails. Go 
on!” 

As we climbed, the light glistening on the 
snowy atom, his feet went up one at a time, 
with dignified deliberation, like a man, — not 
like any dog I ever saw on stairs. The Doctor 
followed in a leisurely way, emphasizing a 
slight limp, due to an injured ankle. Then 
I noticed that the little fellow in advance was 
perceptibly limping, on his left hindfoot. I 
stopped, convulsed, The Doctor paused to 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 51 

look back at me. Dick paused to look back 
at the Doctor. 

“That bally little beggar actually believes 
that he is Morton, and that I’m his dog,” he 
said. “And there are times when I am 
tempted to believe he would make the better 
doctor, whether or no I made the better dog.” 

Dick gave an approving sneeze. “You con- 
ceited thing! Go on upstairs!” the Doctor 
exclaimed. And as we climbed again he 
added: “That boy has audacity enough even 
for the pulpit. But he can’t talk yet, and talk 
is about all there is to-day to the glorious sci- 
ence of medicine. That is where these undi- 
gested methods of healing hold the whip-han- 
dle. For bread pills and pure water are 
undoubtedly the best medicine, nine times out 
of ten, if the patient does not know it and if he 
has unbounded faith in his physician.” 

We had hardly reached the billiard-room 
when a bell rang, with a peculiar, penetrating 
quality, demanding attention. It was the of- 
fice bell, and as Kate’s step sounded below the 
Doctor leaned over the banisters and spoke, 
while Dick, behind him, barked. 

“Kate,” he said, “lying lips are an abomina- 
tion unto the Lord, but a very present help in 


52 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

time of trouble. Whoever it is, say that I am 
dead. And if they cannot wait till morning, 
send them to — ah — send them to Chandler.” 

Picking up a cue, he said: “Dr. Chandler 
makes slow work pulling in a practice. He 
spends his spare time berating me. It’s an 
acknowledged adjunct of the profession here, 
but Chandler has good stuff in him, if he could 
only keep his mind occupied; so I try to keep 
it going.” 

There was a call through a tube, and the 
Doctor replied: “Confusion take you, Kate! 
When I am dead why do you try to resurrect 
me? An old woman hurt herself falling 
downstairs? That’s natural. Of course it 
hurts. What? No money, and Chandler 
won’t go without pay? How do you know? 
All right. Tell the boy I’ll be there as soon 
as he is. Have Sam put Betty in the cart. 
Put in my accident case and have an extra top- 
coat for Mr. Willard. He’s going with me. 
I hear the telephone. Whoever it is say I’ll 
stop on the way back. Look sharp. I’m in 
a hurry.” 

After lighting a cigarette and making a 
fancy shot he turned to me as if a new idea 
had occurred to him. “I must go to the other 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 53 

end of nowhere,” he said, “to patch up an old 
woman who didn’t quite spoil herself falling 
downstairs. Will you come along? or would 
you rather harmonize yourself with something 
here till I return.” 

Of course I went with him. 


CHAPTER VII 


I T was black and blustering, but it was Sat- 
urday; and there never was a Saturday 
night, however black and blustering, when 
those streets were not crowded, from wall 
to wall, with people, perambulators, and 
dogs. Betty was high-spirited and the Doc- 
tor in a reckless mood. We tore through those 
streets like — if Colonel Warden would only 
say it for me — like the very Devil let loose. 
But Dick was with us, saving us and Heaven 
only knows how many more. Balanced on 
my knee, looking steadily into the blackness, 
he sent forth an unbroken volley of sharp, 
shrill barks. Every one knew them as well 
as they knew the Doctor; for all day, every 
day, they emanated from the open window of 
the Doctor’s brougham. It was better for 
clearing a path than a fire-engine bell. 

“Confound those careless creatures!” the 
Doctor said, as we drew up in a narrow street. 
“This is the third time since daylight this 

54 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 55 

morning that I’ve been dragged into' these 
beastly slums. Come on in, if you like. Betty 
will stand till the crack of doom.” 

As I followed him into a miserable place 
I recalled the trouble Lord Annandale had 
had in securing his services. An old woman 
lay groaning on a cot. Her daughter sat sob- 
bing beside her. Her grandson, hat in hand, 
stood in one corner, still panting from his run 
for the Doctor. Soiled dishes from a meager 
supper stood on a bare table by the window, 
on which a single candle burned, lighting the 
room. 

Doctor Morton took the patient’s right hand 
in his left, and passed his right hand over her 
forehead. The groaning ceased. His hand 
moved slowly to her shoulder and down her 
side. He had not asked a question when, with 
a slight nerve shiver, he took the gold pencil 
from his pocket and wrote on two prescrip- 
tion blanks. Tearing them from the pad he 
handed them to the boy, with a sovereign, say- 
ing: 

“Go to the nearest chemist, lad, and have 
these two put up. To-morrow your mother 
will buy you some new shoes and things with 
the change. Be careful, but be quick.” 


56 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

When the boy was gone he turned the pa- 
tient on her back and, leaning over her, gave 
one arm a rather savage wrench. The daugh- 
ter groaned. Looking over his shoulder Dr. 
Morton said, sharply: “What the deuce is 
the matter with you? Did I hurt you?” 

“No, Doctor. It’s mother,” she sobbed. 

“Do you think the racket you are making 
will help her any?” 

“No, Doctor.” 

“Then keep still,” he said. And a moment 
later, buttoning up his coat, he added : “Your 
mother put her shoulder out. I had to set it. 
But it could not have hurt her much, for to- 
gether we didn’t wake her up. Now she will 
sleep on, if you behave yourself, till I come 
in the morning. Your son will bring a plas- 
ter and a bottle. Put the plaster on her side 
there where it is red. Wet a towel from the 
bottle, and wrap it well around her shoulder. 
Then go to bed and sleep. Wet the towel each 
time you wake up. That is all your mother 
will require till I come in the morning. She 
will be much better then. By the way, where 
do you sleep?” 

“With mother, Doctor.” 

“Where does the boy sleep?” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 57 

“Across the foot of the bed, Doctor.” 

“Well, never let him do it again after to- 
night. I’ll send round a cot bed for him in 
the morning.” 

She caught his hand and kissed it, which 
was more to him, I fancy, than double Lord 
Annandale’s fee; but his only comment as we 
drove away was, “What fool things people 
are!” 

He handed me the reins at the massive en- 
trance to one of the grand mansions of the 
city, saying: “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll 
be back in a second. It’s only a nervous 
woman who wants her husband to pay me five 
guineas for a night call. If there’d been a 
ball at Government House to-night, she would 
have gone there, and I should have gone with- 
out my guineas. So much is the glorious sci- 
ence of medicine like Imperial Caesar, turned 
to clay, stopping up holes to keep the wind 
away.” 

On the way home he said, “If it’s not too 
late, I’d like to show you my professional 
rooms — and I have a favor to ask of you be- 
fore you go.” 

We stopped at the side entrance. It was 
like the front, — an arch in the high wall, — 


5 8 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

but instead of an openwork iron gate it was 
closed with solid doors. The Doctor pressed 
a button and a servant took the horse, while 
we entered, — literally entered, — the heart of 
a great rock forming the entire corner. In- 
stead of climbing to the lawn we stood in a 
broad corridor, with consulting rooms and 
operating rooms on each side, lighted by elec- 
tricity and ventilated to an even temperature 
through a unique system of blasts and suction. 
At the farther end the hall was cut at right 
angles by another hall, leading to an engine- 
room, with dynamo, on the left, and to an elec- 
tric laboratory on the right. Between the two 
were the stairs to the house; above and behind 
the stairs was the hidden entrance to the Den. 
Everything was excavated out of the solid rock 
and the floors and walls were polished like 
porphyry. 

The laboratory was full of intricate and 
complicated instruments, the conception of the 
Doctor’s brain, and many of them the work of 
his own fingers. He explained them like a 
child prattling of a pet toy, — so clearly and 
simply that while I listened I seemed to com- 
prehend them all. But if I turned back, to 
test myself, I found that I had not really 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 59 

grasped even the crudest incidents. Only- 
then I began to apprehend what I had under- 
taken when I determined to know this man. 
The world knew him as it knew the bark of 
his dog, the small brass plate, the entertaining 
eccentricities at the club, his wonderful abil- 
ity to heal. I wondered if the world or I had 
it in us to know the rest. For the conviction 
impressed me that all this was but superficial 
phenomena which he exploited to distract; 
that behind it all was a man he was endeavor- 
ing to obliterate. 

While I was thinking these thoughts he 
turned on me abruptly, with a singular frown 
on his forehead, watching me through half- 
closed eyes. I wondered if he purposed prac- 
ticing some chicanery on me, and I consciously 
sealed myself against him. But I was mis- 
taken. As I knew him better I recognized 
only resentful submission in that rather char- 
acteristic expression. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders and led me to the door of the Den. Then 
he directed a young man in the engine-room 
to prepare two cups of coffee; and taking a 
gold key, tipped with silver-steel, hanging on 
his watch-chain, he unlocked the door. 

A small, dome-shaped room, excavated en- 


60 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

tirely through the one entrance, was flooded 
with delicately tinted electric light. There 
was a desk on one side, two or three chairs, a 
divan, and in the center an ebony table, beauti- 
fully inlaid with onyx. On the table, stark 
alone, was the only ornament in the room. It 
was a miniature of one of the bronze doors 
of the Baptistry of San Giovanni, in Florence, 
standing nine or ten inches high, comprising 
the arch and the wonderful gates, perfect, to 
the tiny bas-reliefs, all wrought in pure gold. 
From the moment when the door opened my 
thoughts were never wholly away from it. 
In some way it seemed to me the very soul of 
Muckross; but a strong disinclination re- 
strained me from referring to it. 


CHAPTER VIII 


W HEN the -coffee was brought, remem- 
bering that since I came Dr. Morton 
had not tasted so much as a drop of wine, even 
at dinner, I said that I hoped he was not ab- 
staining out of courtesy to me. 

Instantly he replied: “I am not the kind 
to sacrifice myself without it’s conducing to 
another’s comfort, nor are you one to find 
satisfaction in depriving another to pamper 
personal notions. Drinking is largely a mat- 
ter of unconscious hypnotism, anyway. If 
you were a drinker we might have consumed 
a lot by this; but we should still be as dry as 
parched camels.” 

“With the power as well developed as it is 
in you,” I said, “you might influence others; 
but I can hardly imagine you yourself being 
influenced.” 

Instantly I regretted the words, for he 
turned on me with such a strange expression 
on his face, his eyes half closed. But he 
asked, quietly: 


62 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“What powers do you refer to, pray?” 

“Don’t take me too technically, Doctor,” I 
replied. “I am utterly ignorant of the mys- 
terious — ah — ah — sciences. Humanly speak- 
ing, I should say the ‘power’ to perform mira- 
cles.” 

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. 
Then he threw his feet over a rest, leaned back 
in his chair, and speaking slowly, said : “You 
used that word ‘sciences’ out of courtesy, lest 
I be an adept of some kind, and sensitive. I 
am not an adept of any kind, and I am not 
sensitive. There is no science of the mysteri- 
ous. Science obliterates mystery. Efforts 
are often made to promulgate theories of the 
unknown and call them science; and a theory 
well put is like a lie well told, as strong as an 
axiom and infinitely more pliable. It takes 
a strong hold on the ordinary mind for the 
very reason that it is carefully prepared for 
that express purpose. Christianity is the 
world’s grandest instance of a theory without 
a single substantiating fact. It is the cham- 
pion among endless efforts to take up obvious 
effects, proclaim apparently justifying causes, 
then subtly drift beyond the known, and 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 63 

proclaim the result as sublime, indisputable 
truth.” 

More anxious to learn his opinion of his 
own powers than to discuss theology, I asked, 
“Do you mean, Doctor, that mesmerism, 
'clairvoyance, astral projection, and all those 
things are humbug?” 

“Far from it!” he exclaimed. “They are 
the obvious effects — the indisputable condi- 
tions which confront us. It is the promulgat- 
ing of sciences to account for them, — sciences 
without a scientific fact, — which leads the 
world astray and hinders the development of 
real knowledge. Truth lies at the foundation 
of every fabrication. Physical projection 
and materialization are real — accidents, usu- 
ally following certain incidents — but the sci- 
ences of Theosophy and Spiritualism, claim- 
ing to account for the manifestations, are only 
guesswork. 

“There’s a lot of actual healing which is so 
marvelous and mysterious that it easily gains 
converts to any kind of religion exploiting it; 
but I fancy that electricity — at least some rela- 
tive of uranium — will eventually prove re- 
sponsible for the most of the mental mysteries. 


64 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

They are all the result of suggestion. Life is 
all suggestion — and mostly imagination, for 
that matter. Imagination works on sugges- 
tion, and it has done more good and more 
harm — more killing and curing — than all the 
drugs in the world ever accomplished. It is 
only the old story — old when the Bible was 
new — ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is 
he.’ Christian Science and the like are a 
blessing, in a way, expanding the theory of 
homeopathy (that like cures like) by insti- 
gating Imagination to counteract the mischief 
being done by Imagination.” 

“But you astonish me, Doctor, when you 
include astral projection and materiali- 
zation among things with truth in them,” I 
said. 

“I believe projection is not only true but 
easily in the power of any one, — if he only 
knew how,” the Doctor replied. “Can you 
wag your ear? I can wag mine. See? You 
could if you knew how; but for the life of me 
I could not tell you how any more than you 
could tell me how you open your mouth or 
move your hand. I did it once by accident. 
Then I knew how. Nothing more.” 

“I have heard some apparently authentic 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 65 

stories about the dying projecting themselves 
to friends far away,” I said. 

“If it is as I think, through some integrant 
of electricity,” he replied, “the dying more 
easily use it simply because reason is relaxing 
its power over instinct. Your reason would 
pronounce the thing preposterous, so you 
couldn’t do it if you tried. But I think I 
can give you a demonstration. Kate was abed 
and asleep long ago, two floors above us, in 
the rear. She has a frame of bells and tubes 
connecting her with pretty much everything. 
She reaches the Den by that tube. See if I 
cannot call her to it.” 

As he spoke he was lifting the cup of coffee 
to his lips. It paused, in mid air. The other 
hand was about to remove his cigarette. It 
went to his forehead instead. He closed his 
eyes with his fingers. He had just hung his 
glasses on his ear, to show me how vigorously 
he could wag it. They still hung there. He 
puffed two or three thick clouds of smoke. 
There was nothing uncanny but a sleepy voice 
coming through the tube, saying: 

“What is it, Doctor?” 

“Ask her how she knew,” the Doctor whis- 
pered. 


66 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“It’s just a trick of the Doctor’s,” Kate re- 
plied to my question. “I’m a nervous thing, 
and have so much jumping for bells from oth- 
ers that when he wants me he has a way of 
making me think that I see him — like just now 
he was standing by my bed saying, ‘Go to the 
Den tube, Kate.’ At first the remedy was 
worse than the disease, it scared me so; but 
I’ve got that used to it that I wish he’d teach 
all his callers and patients the trick, and do 
away with bells altogether.” 

“Before you go to sleep again and forget, 
Kate, can you tell me anything about how he 
looked to-night?” I asked. 

“I’m most afraid not, sir,” she replied. “I 
was that sound asleep and he seemed in an 
awful hurry. I just jumped. He had a cup 
of some kind — not a wine glass — in one hand, 
I think; and there was something funny dan- 
gling on his ear. No. That is absurd. I 
must have been dreaming and mixed things.” 

“Thank you, and good-night, Kate,” I 
called and dropped the tube. 

The Doctor turned slowly till he faced me, 
smiling as he said, “Don’t let it convert you to 
anything. I only know how it is done. I 
fancy the secret of many things lies in the fact 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 67 

that electricity is a combination of energies — 
one of them a vehicle of thought, carrying 
pictures, impressions. I believe that, like air, 
electricity is a combination. If we can sepa- 
rate the parts as we do air, using only the qual- 
ity which we require, what can we not accom- 
plish for humanity?” 

“You are beyond my depth,” I said. “But 
I have grasped something of this incident with 
Kate. Help me by making it clearer.” 

“How can I?” he said. “It is no clearer to 
me. Kate calls it a trick. As yet that’s not 
a bad name for it. She certainly saw me. 
The cup, instead of a wine-glass, and the 
glasses on my ear are good evidence. But 
she saw me standing, while I was really sit- 
ting. Now, I thought of myself as standing 
by her bed, delivering just the message she 
received; and to make a good exhibition I 
wanted her to hurry. The cup in my hand and 
the glasses on my ear were sufficiently dis- 
tracting to demand a little of my thought and 
so became part of it, and some reliable vehicle 
carried that thought and impressed it on her 
brain. I have never received back any more 
impression than if I had sent the message in 
writing; but that is a matter for development. 


68 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

Only this is certain: there is something about 
us bigger than our brains. Soul is a bad 
name, for it confuses us with the rutted mean- 
ing of Christianity. ‘Mind’ has a precon- 
ceived meaning, too, but call it ‘Mind.’ It 
surely works in our own brains, receiving what 
information we put there and directing our 
actions accordingly; but as surely it will go 
from us and work upon other brains, produc- 
ing impressions there, for other Minds to util- 
ize in directing actions, if consciously — or un- 
consciously — we send it upon the mission. I 
added that word unconsciously, Willard, in 
deference to certain doubts in me concerning 
you.” 

“Concerning me?” I exclaimed. 

But the Doctor only smiled, and continued: 
“As we know each other better that ques- 
tion will surely come up again. This much 
at least is true: I can do and be only according 
to my brain. My Mind, no matter how 
mighty, is restricted to whatever my brain is. 
If people would only grasp that fact it would 
be immensely helpful to humanity. My 
Mind manipulates me through my brain; and 
through my brain it receives all the informa- 
tion by which it manipulates me. The ship’s 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 69 

sextant, compass, chart, etc., establish all the 
information upon which the navigator must 
act, and the engine and helm are his only 
means of expression. An error in any of them 
limits the possibilities of the greatest officer 
who ever stood upon a bridge. If his source 
of reception or expression is wrong, the re- 
sults will always be wrong. It is my brain , 
not my Mind, nor my soul, which is responsi- 
ble for what I am. Give the Mind a perfect 
workshop and you make a perfect man. If 
we can operate on the brain and eradicate its 
errors, we can obliterate evil from the world.” 

“But suppose the devil declines to be downed 
so easily,” I said. “I presume he is capable 
of devising new methods of instigating to 
evil.” 

“My conventional friend,” he replied, “the 
theory of ‘the devil and his devices’ has mud- 
dled religions ever since the first investigator 
realized a war on his members. To clear the 
god he had created, — as the creator of every- 
thing, — from the crime of having created 
crime, he devised ‘the devil’ to bear the re- 
sponsibility, as if the devil, and all that in him 
is, must not have been a part of the great first 
cause as much as everything else.” 


70 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“I’m not vouching for a devil, Doctor,” I 
said. “But that evil is, is painfully evident.” 

“As evident as the cold which nips our ears 
on frosty mornings,” he replied. “But a god 
could not create cold. Man cannot manu- 
facture cold. Cold is nothing. It simply in- 
dicates an absence of heat. We can make 
heat, and in exact proportion as we produce 
it cold disappears. Evil is nothing, — abso- 
lutely nothing, — but a lack of good. Just as 
instilling heat obliterates cold, instigating 
good obliterates evil.” 

“Can insanity be treated as well, Doctor?” 
I asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“Abnormal conditions relegated to retreats 
are not half as difficult problems as are dis- 
eased and distorted brains outside,” he said. 
“When we have disintegrated electricity we 
shall hold the key that can lock and unlock 
doors in any brain. The ability to check pain 
is immaterial compared with that; and be- 
sides, pain ought not always to be checked. 
For pain is Nature’s danger signal. Mental 
or physical it means that some law has been 
broken, and it is better that we should be noti- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 71 

fied; for a broken law demands either venge- 
ance or repair. What I want to do is to 
reach the operating room of the Mind. 

“It is as sensible to condemn a man to prison 
for limping when he has a broken leg as to 
condemn his soul — or Mind — for evil results 
through the medium of a distorted brain.” A 
moment later he added: 

“That boy in the Cathedral had so small a 
brain cavity that his Mind could not work at 
all in the outer cells of thought. He was an 
absolutely irresponsible idiot. His mother 
gave him to me, and I brought her on here 
with him, to be his nurse in our hospital. 
Now she wants to take back her gift, because, 
as the result of an operation which gave his 
Mind room to work, he is hearing, seeing, and 
learning to talk. He is beginning to be what 
they call ‘morally responsible’; but surely he 
has the same Mind as before. We operated 
only on his brain. It is the brain which can 
be and must be adjusted. Then all tendencies 
to—” 

Being a good listener my eyes were intently 
on the earnest face across the table. But 
throughout the conversation my hand had been 


72 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

gently caressing the golden gem at my elbow. 
I suppose that my finger touched something 
which yielded, inciting harder pressure. It 
proved a spring which released the gates un- 
der the arch, and they swung open. I did not 
realize what had happened when the sentence 
died on the Doctor’s lips, and with a groan 
and a cringe the face was transformed to the 
one which I saw at the concert. 

My heart stood still. My eyes followed his 
and through the gates I saw something angelic 
on ivory, — a girlish face, enveloped in gold- 
brown hair. Then the fragrance of a white 
rose engulfed me. My brain reeled in the 
old agony. I saw nothing, felt nothing, but 
the reality of the Woman I worshiped; and I 
could have fallen at Morton’s feet for help. 
But his groaning, across the table, recalled me. 
I dared not look in his face again nor ask a 
question ; but realizing that in some way I had 
done it, I set myself desperately to repair the 
damage. My hand was numb as I watched 
it close the gates. Then forcing myself to 
speak, I said: 

“I must accidentally have touched a spring 
in this masterly work of a Florentine gold- 
beater. I have often sat on Angelo’s bench, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 73 

in the Palazzo Duomo, admiring these grand 
gates of Giovanni’s Baptistry.” 

Then, with the feeling that our only extri- 
cation from the predicament into which I had 
plunged us lay in my continuing any kind of 
talk requiring no response, and also that I must 
get myself away, — that he would better be 
alone, — I drew my hand slowly away from the 
golden horror, following it with my eyes while 
I spoke of the slant-eyed workmen of Cathay, 
who inlaid the onyx in the ebony. Then from 
the table to the rug, with a personal experience 
among the weavers in Damascus. Then to 
the polished floor, recalling the excavations 
of Elephanta, near Bombay, and up the Nile. 
And, still talking, I rose slowly, taking my 
hat, and walked down the hall with Dr. Mor- 
ton. 

I was only startled into silence when I 
opened the outer door to find myself in a flood 
of sunshine when I thought it was the middle 
of the night. 

Cordially grasping my hand, the Doctor, — 
who was wholly himself again, — said: “It is 
a good omen that our first evening has gone 
quickly. Remember it in considering the fa- 
vor I have to ask, which is that you bring your 


74 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

traps and make Muckross your home as long 
as you can remain in the city. Good-by, my 
friend. A sound morning sleep to you and a 
good appetite.” 


CHAPTER IX 


R EACHING my room I lay down, alter- 
nately determining to leave the city at 
once and to accept the invitation. A dream 
settled the question. I was facing Dr. Mor- 
ton in the snuggery, clutching his wrists. He 
struggled and writhed, glaring at me with 
those blood-shot eyes set in the horribly dis- 
torted face. Everything was in confusion. 
Chairs and tables were overturned. I woke, 
dripping with perspiration, just as I was lean- 
ing toward him, looking straight into his eyes, 
saying: “Sleep, man! Sleep! I command 
you, Sleep!” 

It was easily accounted for and while dress- 
ing I got myself sufficiently from the oppres- 
sion to laugh at the strand of hypnotism woven 
in. But the lasting impression was of his 
colossal qualities, mental and physical, com- 
pared to which I was little better than a pigmy. 
He held me much too high, but familiarity 
would breed contempt if I gave it the oppor- 
75 


76 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

tunity. Possibly, too, there was something in 
the shrine which frightened me. 

Coming from the lunch room I found Kate 
waiting in the hotel parlor. She declined the 
chair I offered, and began, hurriedly: “Ex- 
cuse me for coming here, Mr. Willard; but 
the Doctor will call to take you to drive, and 
I wanted to see you first. He will ask you to 
come to Muckross to live. I was afraid you 
might think it too — something or other — and 
decline; and I wanted to say how much he 
really wants you, and how hard I will try 
to make you comfortable, if you will only 
come.” 

It was no small compliment; but I referred 
to our slight acquaintance, and to the pity of 
it if he should repent. 

“But he will not!” she said, quickly. “He 
knows men. His dining-room and billiard- 
room are always full, and his decanters and 
-cigar boxes are always empty, fill them as 
often as I will. He lets those people come 
because amusing them helps him to forget 
to think. But he never asked one of them to 
stay the night. And never, until last night, 
has he ever taken a mortal into the Den. You 
will save him, Mr. Willard, if you will only 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 77 

come. He is always saving others, but he 
is dying an awful death, alone. He needs 
you.” 

She stopped suddenly, as she caught the look 
of astonishment in my face. Her cheeks, 
which were flushed, turned pale. “I never 
spoke of it to any one before,” she said. “And 
I will never speak again. I forgot that I was 
only his housekeeper. I only remembered 
that if you would come you could understand 
him, and save him.” 

“I think that you are wrong, Kate,” I said. 
“But I will come.” 

She gave me a grateful glance and hurried 
away. 

Of course Dr. Morton stood alone. No 
one could reach the heights he had attained 
without being alone. Mountain peaks are al- 
ways in solitude. That I could ever climb 
the heights was beyond hoping. I consented 
simply for Kate’s sake; for her devotion was 
a quality too rare to be lightly ignored. 

During the afternoon in the brougham the 
Doctor’s conversation ran along different 
lines, but as all roads lead to Rome, everything 
turned, with him, to his grand passion to ob- 
literate evil and resulting suffering from the 


78 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

world. Pointing to a cottage we were pass- 
ing, he said: 

“The people living there are in court. The 
rector of the parish instigated the action. The 
crime with which they are charged is that they 
allowed a baby, two years old, to go from in- 
fluenza to inflammation of the lungs; then to 
the brain coating, and then, of course, it died 
of brain fever. They trusted to prayer, in- 
stead of calling a physician. The rector’s 
Bible justifies them; Christian Science stands 
behind it; and any doctor in the world will 
admit that if there is a thing a god ought to be 
able to accomplish in response to supplication, 
it is the restoration of a healthy child down 
with influenza. I’ve done it myself time and 
again, and they’re recovering every day with- 
out either prayer or pills. It would not have 
required a fraction of the disruption of things 
to have cured him that it would to send rain 
where Nature’s forces are prepared for 
drought. And worse yet, those people had 
just lost one child. An unpaid doctor’s bill 
was all that remained of him. In that case 
the rector extended to them the consolation of 
religion, telling them that all things must 
eventuate just as God willed, regardless of 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 79 

everything, and that they must be reconciled. 
So this time, on their knees they prayed, ‘Lead 
us not into another affliction, but deliver us 
from any more doctor’s bills.’ Now, instead 
of religious consolation, the rector starts an 
action for criminal neglect.” 

“It is certainly confusing,” I remarked. 

“It is,” he said. “Simply because people 
have eyes, but they see not. Ears have they, 
but they hear not. They have hands, but they 
only handle over and over the same old idiotic 
contradictions, till it’s no wonder their brains 
become twisted, denying eternal truth to jus- 
tify their elastic souls in kneeling at the altar 
of popular ethics. I myself have very little 
faith in drugs. A doctor does not cure. He 
often relieves and ought always to console, — 
which is all the aid that Nature requires, out- 
side of surgery, to work out salvation where 
salvation is possible. All England prayed for 
the restoration of our Prince when he was 
down with typhoid, and he recovered, — as 
thousands of others have from precisely the 
same conditions. But when for weeks all 
America prayed for the recovery of President 
Garfield he died, because, as the autopsy re- 
vealed, he had received what was then consid- 


80 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

ered a mortal wound. No one wondered at 
his death, for all acknowledged — little though 
they applied the fact — that it did not lie in 
the power of deity to save the life of one mor- 
tally wounded. Yet more suggestive is the 
fact that Garfield’s case has recently been 
taken up again, in the light of modern prog- 
ress, and a distinguished American has read 
a paper before a large medical congress prov- 
ing, from the successful treatment of precisely 
the same conditions, that if as much had been 
known then as is known to-day President Gar- 
field’s life might easily have been saved. But 
the eyes see not, and the ears hear not, and we 
go right on praying for rain and punishing 
people for trusting to prayer to heal the 
sick. 

“Why, the intelligent administration of law 
is absurdity. Law is no more creatable than 
cold. It is simply a relation; always relative; 
always dependent, — the immutable connection 
between cause and effect. Intelligence is sim- 
ply a knowledge of the relations. Intelligent 
administration of law would be as impossible 
as it would be to create something a foot long 
with only one end to it. Law is not amenable 
to a creator.” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 81 

“Then how about the past age of miracles, 
Doctor?” I asked. 

“The age of miracles is not passed, for the 
age of miracles never was,” he replied. 
“Some of the recorded miracles are absurd. 
It is silly to believe that a god who had created 
all men and loved all men would, even if he 
could, disrupt the universe, and hold the sun 
and moon still in the heavens so that some of 
his creatures could have more light to go on 
killing others whom he had created. And as 
for wonderful things which really occurred, 
and are occurring as much to-day as ever in 
history, it is much more likely that there is an 
error in our understanding of law than that 
law was ever transcended. It couldn’t be, or 
it wouldn’t be law.” 

“But there must be punishment for crime,” 
I said. 

“It depends upon how you consider crime 
and what you mean by punishment,” he re- 
plied. “No man ever committed an offense 
except with the conviction that it was the best 
course for himself, under the circumstances. 
His Mind was working on false information 
which it received through a disordered brain. 
A deaf man does not hear a warning. A blind 


82 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

man does not see his danger. But punishing 
their souls for their blunders would be ab- 
surd.” 

“Do you mean that criminals, too, can be 
reformed by treatment of the brain?” I asked. 

“What else can reformation mean?” he said. 
“Only what is ^-formed needs reformation. 
The body of the convict is not deformed. The 
brain was certainly responsible for the offense, 
and punishing the body, in prison, does not re- 
form the brain. The brain is all that is wrong 
with the fool, the idiot, the maniac, the crim- 
inal. With disintegrated electricity and 
power to use its parts we shall be able to make 
them all rational and honest. When Mac- 
beth wails, 

‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; 

Raze out the troubles of the brain?’ 


we shall answer with the word his wife has 
taught us. We shall locate the disordered 
cells which lead the Mind astray, and say to 
them, ‘Out, damned spot!’ and the evil will 
disappear. You are right, Willard. It can 
be done and we will try to do it.” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 83 

“II” I exclaimed. The Doctor only 
shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 

Returning to Muckross for dinner, he in- 
sisted on sending at once to the hotel for my 
l u gg a g e an d without more formality I was in- 
stalled in surroundings where every hour 
throbbed with life, but where the time slipped 
away without a hint as to Kate’s meaning of 
any help that I could render. And true to 
her word she never mentioned it again. 

I knew Dr. Morton no better as time went 
by than after the first night in the Den; and 
though the fascination grew and held me 
there week after week, I only became better 
impressed that I never should know him. 
Every day the friendship between us strength- 
ened, and new depths constantly developed in 
the man, but I could not fathom one of them. 
I had not found a limitation which I could 
understand when an incident occurred, — or 
was it an accident? 


CHAPTER X 


I OFTEN enjoyed the organ in the snug- 
gery opposite the arched entrance; for 
the Doctor was fond of music, though he said 
he never played. One afternoon I sat alone, 
dreaming at the organ. These dreams were 
always of the Woman I worshiped. She 
grew constantly dearer to me, though I was 
calmly letting the time slip by instead of turn- 
ing every energy to win the prize. I could 
not understand myself or what held me to 
Muckross. In dreams, which grew almost to 
conviction, I fancied there was to be some 
grand sacrifice, or some great service which I 
should render her, till sometimes I could al- 
most hear her whisper, “You did it for me, 
because you loved me so; and, beloved, I can 
love you now.” 

Suddenly in the polished brass plate of the 
organ I saw Dr. Morton standing in the arch 
behind me, one hand holding back the por- 
tiere. I played on, without speaking, my eyes 
fixed on the reflection in the mirror. My 

84 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 85 

thoughts, with my fingers following, wan- 
dered back along the beautiful days we had 
spent together till they brought me to the con- 
cert where I first saw that strong, kind face 
coming toward me. Instinctively my fingers 
leaped to the grand refrain of “The Holy 
City,” — “Hosanna in the highest!” 

The face I was watching shrank into the 
awful lines that I had not seen there since my 
first night in the Den, and Dr. Morton disap- 
peared. 

Stunned, I sat there, unconsciously going 
over and over the same refrain till Kate ran 
in from the rear door, caught my arm, and 
whispered: “For God’s sake, not that, Mr. 
Willard. He might come in and hear it.” 

The Doctor did not appear again till we 
met at the dinner table. There were dark 
lines under his eyes and a leaden pallor about 
his lips. He sat silent at the table and left it 
soon, to lie down on the divan, where he was 
instantly sound asleep. 

Kate’s face was pale, and even little Dick, 
instead of jumping up as usual for a nap be- 
side his master, lay on the rug till I pushed 
back my chair; then, for the first time, and 
without an invitation, he jumped on my knee 


86 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

and lay there shivering, his brown eyes wide 
open, watching his unconscious master. 

Passing me, Kate whispered, “He must 
have heard.” 

In disgust I said to myself: “He heard a 
strain of music. And now, stupefied by an 
opiate, he’s lying there snoring like a brute! 
Oh, Morton! Morton!” My meteor flashed 
and in the flame expired, without leaving in 
me one spark of charity even, to relieve the 
blackness. 

Kate beckoned. I followed her into the 
snuggery. Dick came too, but his pretty head 
was drooping. I pitied him. Kate’s eyes 
were heavy with crushed tears. I pitied her. 
She whispered : 

“Now you have seen it, Mr. Willard. Now 
you can pity him and help him.” 

Pity him? I had not thought of that. 
Kate whispered the words, but they thundered 
through me. Had I reveled in his friendship 
only to say what I had said to myself the mo- 
ment his mute suffering appealed to me for 
pity and for help? How little I understood 
even the unconscious thing upon the divan. 

“What is it, Kate?” I asked; and she, sob- 
bing, said: 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 87 

“Some awful thing that he remembers. 
That your playing makes him remember.” 

“I will go to my room and think, Kate,” I 
said. “If he wakes and wants me, or if you 
want me, you will find me there.” 

So I sat alone with the problem; for I must 
find the solution first, if I would help him. It 
was the Hosanna strain, almost identical in 
“The Holy City” and the “Resurrection 
Hymn,” which made him remember some- 
thing about the one whose face was on the 
ivory behind the golden gates, — something 
sufficient to torture him into going to any limit 
to force forgetfulness. 

The gates had not been opened nor had any 
reference been made to the gem since my first 
night in the Den. 

Often, however, as I had sat beside it 
the bewildering fragrance of the astral rose 
filled the air till sometimes I wondered if the 
brilliant grace of girlhood in the shrine, sanc- 
tified by suffering, had developed into the 
woman I worshiped. What could it be, then, 
that Morton remembered? What did she 
mean when she said, “I cannot love”? My 
fists were clenched. My collar choked me. 
For whoever it was in the shrine, Morton had 


88 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

loved her and lost her in no ordinary way. 
If it could ever have been possible for him to 
wrong a woman, and if she had taken her own 
life in shame, I could see how remorse might 
torture such a man as he. 

He said once: “Pain is Nature’s danger 
signal. Mental or physical, it means that a 
law has been broken, — and broken law de- 
mands either vengeance or repair.” The 
keenness of his suffering indicated the propor- 
tion of the broken law. That it continued 
showed that it was not repaired, — that he 
thought it irreparable. If it meant anything 
it meant that he was directly responsible for 
the irredeemable wreck of the woman whom 
he loved. Nothing less could account for it, 
and there was but one thing worse — I could 
not even think that other thing in connection 
with Morton. 

But why did the fragrance of the white rose 
haunt me? Why did I cringe to realize that 
he loved her still, with all the fierceness of his 
tortured soul? Because I knew that if it 
transpired that the two were one, I should 
kill him! and laugh as I watched him die: the 
final vengeance of the broken law which had 
forced her to say to me, “I cannot love.” It 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 89 

even came to me that this was the act of which 
I dreamed; that it was for this that the destiny 
which shapes our ends had brought me half 
way round the world. I understood it all at 
last, and why the button quit my glove. The 
veins seemed bursting in my throat when sud- 
denly, in the middle of the night, there stole 
to my ears the first soft notes of the “Resurrec- 
tion Hymn” from the organ in the snuggery. 
Noiselessly I hurried down the stairs. The 
doors under the arch were closed. The rear 
door stood ajar. I looked in. I saw him sit- 
ting there. My friend. 

Dear Heaven, how quickly we can forget! 
Again I only realized that I loved him, and 
what I ought to be and must be if I would 
be worthy to do so. The only light in the 
room was one of the organ candles, shining 
full upon the side of his face which was 
toward me. Stark alone it stood out in the 
darkness, every feature radiant with supernal 
joy. He had no notes. He did not glance at 
the keyboard, but his fingers moved with a 
touch and precision that were perfect. His 
hair was thrown back from his forehead. 
His eyes looked upward, and a tear flashed 
like a diamond as it crept down his cheek. 


9 o THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

Then, in a voice which was full of pathetic 
melody, he sang as he played: 

“Hosanna in the highest! In the highest!” 

Stunned, I stood there. The alternative 
was gone. The other awful thing was true. 
He must have murdered the woman whom he 
loved. But the face at the organ was looking 
forward , beyond the foreline of Eternity, in 
faith believing that for some mitigating ex- 
piation, which he knew, it would there be set 
right, — the broken law which here was irrep- 
arable. 

His eyes fell till they rested on a plain gold 
ring he always wore. He clutched it with 
the other hand, cringed, and left the organ. 

The moment he reached his room I hurried 
after him and tapped on the door. He was 
in bed. “What, up and dressed at this time 
of night?” he asked. 

It took me by surprise, and I replied, rashly : 
“I fancied I heard the organ. I was not feel- 
ing quite right and possibly my brain was 
feverishly romancing. Seeing a light under 
your door, I came across.” 

Watching me with half-closed eyes and 
speaking slowly, he said: “Your mind re- 
quires cold facts for a foundation, Willard, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 91 

however it may romance with them afterward. 
That’s the difference between a wise man and 
a fool. One founds romances upon facts. 
That’s reasoning. The other founds facts 
upon romances. That’s a fool’s paradise. 
You are not a fool, my boy. You started in 
with the organ playing. Where did you come 
out?” 

“With the conviction that my ideal of all 
that is honest can both play the organ and 
sing, exceptionally well,” I said. 

Still seeming to be feeling his way toward 
something, he clasped his hands behind his 
head and said: “The question of veracity is 
complex and curious. The Psalmist admits 
that he said in his haste that all men are liars. 
Men often hit nearest the truth when they 
speak in haste, and I think that he did. In- 
stinct is Truth. Reason is hypnotized instinct. 
It frequently finds it advisable to lie. The 
sharpness of many a thorn is dulled by lies, 
and many a rough edge rounded. Lies per- 
fume and disinfect the fetid odors of reality. 
They putty up life’s rottenness and varnish out 
its rust and corrosion. They are honey where 
the truth would be wormwood. They are 
cooling where the truth would scorch. From 


92 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

the first fig-leaf to the last robe of righteous- 
ness, Reason has advocated deception. What 
I said to you was that I never played the or- 
gan; and I have not, for many years, until 
to-night. But it was a lie, for it was intended 
to produce the impression that I could not 
play. I preferred you should not know, just 
as you, when you came in here, preferred I 
should not know that you came from the rear 
door of the snuggery. Hold on now, my boy. 
Keep quiet. It was all right, and I haven’t 
finished. The reason why I never play is — ” 

“Stop, Morton!” I exclaimed. “ This is no 
confessional.” 

“Certainly not,” he replied. “Confession 
implies crime. Crime is that which does in- 
jury — to oneself or some one else. Now a lie 
which does no injury is no crime. But when 
the truth is told to do an injury, then the truth 
becomes a crime. You said you were not feel- 
ing just right, and I’m a doctor. It’s five 
guineas after dark, but I can stand it, if you 
can. What’s out?” 

After a moment’s thought I replied, “Only 
anxiety.” 

“About me?” 

I nodded. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 93 

“Because I have a skeleton which occasion- 
ally escapes its closet?” 

I nodded again. 

“And because when its bones were rattled 
this afternoon, I turned to the nepenthe which 
has wrecked so many a physician?” 

I could only nod again. 

“If the skeleton were yours, Willard, you 
too would place a syringe on an altar, and 
kneeling to it say with David, ‘Though he slay 
me, yet will I trust him.’ ” 

“I would not if I were Morton,” I replied. 

“Why?” 

“Because he is mightier than I. He knows 
the effects of alcohol and opium on the heart 
and brain tissues. He knows the importance 
of his brain, and that it is a crime to injure 
oneself.” 

“But the skeleton is mightier than Morton, 
Willard. You do not know the skeleton.” 

Did I? My heart was throbbing to stifle 
me. This was my first opportunity to help 
him. If I let it go, I felt that it would be my 
last. If I was wrong all would be over be- 
tween us. But with such a man one must be 
frank if one would remain his friend. Look- 
ing steadily in his eyes I said: 


94 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“It is the murder of the woman you loved.” 

His face was as white as death, but it was 
also as calm as death. His eyes did not flinch, 
nor his voice tremble, as he asked: 

“Is that why you followed me here?” 

“O my friend! My friend!” I cried. “By 
all that is honest in the universe, believe me. 
I do not so much as know your nationality, 
nor a word of your history which you have not 
told me. To-night you drove me to think of 
something — and there was nothing else. Then 
you challenged me, and I spoke — simply that 
you might know that I could understand, 
could pity you with all my heart, and still 
could say to you that though I and all the 
world for less reason might fly to liquor and 
morphia, you, Morton, have no right to. You 
must not, and — ” 

“And I will not, Willard, ever again. 
Here’s my hand. It’s too late now, but after 
dinner come with me to the Den. There’s a 
little tale which I should like to tell you. You 
have not extorted it. It has been for long a 
thought with me that I should like to tell you. 
And now, feel better. Good-night, and pleas- 
ant dreams.” 


CHAPTER XI 


a T ’M off early to-day,” Dr. Morton said at 
X breakfast. “If you want a bit of nov- 
elty in medical practice, come along. One 
sailor murdered another down near the 
wharves last night. He is in jail, apparently 
crazy, and the court has sent to me for an 
opinion.” 

I should have known him better than to 
expect any sign of the night before, but when 
the word “murder,” which sent a chill to my 
heart, slipped from his tongue as easily as any 
other, I could have believed that I had 
dreamed it all. 

When we reached the jail the warden said, 
“He has either taken poison or he is dying in 
a fit.” A court officer added, “He’s stark mad 
anyway.” 

We found him on a bunk in a padded cell, 
lying on his back, white and semi-rigid, his 
eyes half open, with a death-like gaze. “Cata- 
lepsy,” the Doctor remarked, giving his head 
a vigorous shake by the hair, without rousing 
95 


96 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

him. He made a few more tests, then taking 
off one shoe and stocking, said: “I’ll try tic- 
kling the bottom of his foot. Not many can 
stand that. I say, Dick! Osculate! Go 
on!” 

Dr. Morton was fond of instilling mon- 
strous terms into Dick’s tiny head, and he had 
also taught him that for sanitary reasons a 
dog’s kiss should always be on the ear. The 
little fellow understood, but did not like the 
assignment. He obeyed spitefully, and while 
the Doctor tickled the bottom of the man’s bare 
foot, Dick leaped upon the cot and gave his 
ear one savage lap. 

Speaking slowly, and so loud that I fancied 
the warden must be deaf, Dr. Morton said: 

“If it is cataleptic insanity, as I think, he 
will come out of this trance presently, and be 
rational till nine o’clock to-night, the hour he 
committed the murder. Then he will go mad 
again, and try to kill anything in sight. If 
you are within reach, he will kill you. We 
can get him out of it in a few days.” 

As we drove from the jail he said: “A 
queer thing, the brain. Cells and fibers and 
tissues; absorbing nutriment, discharging ref- 
use, carrying messages, storing impressions, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 97 

conjuring notions, day and night, without a 
second of rest, from the cradle to the grave. 
There are substations of the brain all over the 
body, more or less developed according as the 
direct agents, the eyes or ears, for example, 
fail. First, at the base of the brain is the cen- 
tral station for the automatic machinery, — 
respiration, pulsation, digestion. Then for 
erratic action — walking, chewing, etc. Then 
the storage vaults for impressions, — mem- 
ory. And over all the outer coating for 
thought, — the headquarters of the Mind. But 
the Mind can be — and it ought to be trained 
to be — in direct authority over every central 
station and so over every brain cell in the body. 
Laura Bridgeman, though deaf and blind, 
achieved wonderful things in life by making 
other sources serve her Mind. And except 
when reason interferes the Mind is not at all 
particular through what office it receives its 
information just as it follows the path of least 
resistance in carrying out its conclusions. 
Hobbies, manias, insanity, and crime are all in 
the same way the result of brain development, 
— along deflected lines. That is the secret of 
all mysterious healing. It simply instigates 
the Mind to use its authority intelligently 


98 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

where it has been acting on suggestions from 
some source to the contrary. It is the secret 
by which we shall soon be treating every func- 
tion of the body, physical and moral, through 
the brain. Genius is only an eccentric devel- 
opment of a few centers, — usually at the ex- 
pense of others. Insanity and crime are only 
the abnormal development of faculties which 
we all possess. In the normal we call them 
‘Imagination’ and ‘Ambition.’ Overdevel- 
oped they easily become ‘Insanity’ and 
‘Crime.’ ” 

“But, Doctor,” I said, “the man who com- 
mits a crime knows that he is wrong and that 
if he is caught he will be punished.” 

“So does the spy in the enemy’s country in 
time of war,” he replied. “He knows that he 
will hang or be shot for it if he is caught. 
But he glories in what he is at. There is no 
difference so far as the man’s own interest, — 
which controls him, — is concerned.” 

“But at least he should be punished for the 
protection of society,” I said. 

“Punishing the man is poor protection 
to society,” he replied. “It only instigates him 
to be more careful in his wrongdoing when he 
is free again. Anything short of life impris- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 99 

onment simply provides a better educated, 
more cautious criminal, to impose upon soci- 
ety. When other good things go wrong we 
repair them. Why do we simply lock men up, 
and make them worse? The point is this : I 
am going to save that man up at the jail. He 
has a wonderfully developed workshop in his 
skull right along the lines we are on. I am 
going to have him sent to an asylum, then to 
our paralyzer. He will agree to it, to save 
hanging; and we shall have a living proof of 
the accuracy of our theory of mental, not moral 
responsibility for crime, — of the obliteration 
of evil tendencies through the reformation of 
the brain.” 

“But if he is crazy, how can they hang 
him?” I asked. “And, by the way, what is 
cataleptic insanity? I never heard the term 
before.” 

“Neither did I,” replied the Doctor, laugh- 
ing. 

“You don’t mean — ” 

“I surely do. That man was simply sham- 
ming; but, by all the gods and little fishes, he 
did it beautifully. Truth is mighty and will 
usually prevail if you give it time. But a 
good lie produces spontaneous conviction. 


ioo THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

Those two keepers were so cock-sure of their 
opinion that he was mad that even before I 
saw the prisoner I made up my mind that he 
had lied to them. His Mind was in direct 
command of every center and thread in his 
body, holding it in complete paralysis. It is 
only a trick with him, which he has hit on in 
some way; but he can do it. I knew that if 
he were cheating he was keeping himself 
posted about things through his ears; so I 
drew all his attention to the bottom of his foot 
and Dick went for his ear. It was an unex- 
pected shock and his diaphragm cringed. 
That was all. A rattling good brain, already 
trained by experience for our work. He heard 
what I said to the warden, and it is my opin- 
ion that at precisely nine o’clock to-night he 
will do it, to prove to us that he has cataleptic 
insanity.” 


CHAPTER XII 


A FTER dinner the Doctor said to Kate: 

“Mr. Willard and I shall be busy in the 
Den for the next hour, and I must not be 
disturbed. At precisely quarter past nine ring 
up the jail and say that I want a report of the 
cataleptic prisoner. Then call the Den and 
tell me about it. After that I will see pa- 
tients. Come on, Willard.” 

He did not lead the way like a man about to 
confess a murder that was filling his life with 
agony, — or to confess anything, if confession 
implies crime. He smiled as he took his ac- 
customed chair and I mine across the onyx 
table. His hand rested within an inch of the 
shrine, as he began: 

“You said you didn’t know my nationality. 
But I’ll wager good gold that if it were a mat- 
ter of importance, you could shut yourself up 
for ten minutes, and — what did I tell you? 
You have it already.” 

“Doctor!” I exclaimed. “I do not know! 
Only this minute the thought came to me that 

IOI 


102 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

never before were so many good qualities com- 
bined under any but an Irish scalp.” 

“Good old Ireland!” he said. “She has 
most that is best and all that is worst in com- 
posite man. Yes; I am Irish. But the fact 
that I am a political convict, — an escaped ex- 
ile, with a price still on my head, unless the 
recent act of Parliament removed it, — renders 
it undesirable that even Kate should suspect 
my origin. When I was seventeen I was grad- 
uated from Christ Church College, Dublin, 
and began the study of medicine. But the 
woes of Ireland lay heavy on my heart. An 
Irishman always goes by his heart, you know; 
never by his head, like a sensible man. My 
home was on the Boyne-water, only a stone’s 
throw from the home of John Boyle O’Reilly, 
— as grand a fellow as ever set foot on sod. 
The little window of my bedroom looked out 
on the monument commemorating the victory 
of William over good old James. How I 
hated it! I was home on a holiday when they 
had the grand celebration at the monument, 
which so nearly disrupted old Ireland again. 
I did my best to help on the disruption. I had 
just little enough knowledge of chemistry to 
make it a dangerous thing. I concocted what 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 103 

I thought would prove a world-reducing com- 
bustible. I planted it at the base of the mon- 
ument, and set it off at the close of the grand 
oration. It flung the dirt about, betraying its 
sinister intent, then fizzled out. I stood close 
to it, fully expecting to go up with the crowd 
— but that, you know, is Irish patriotism. I 
was so close that no one suspected me, and 
another fellow, who had nothing to do with it, 
was tried and condemned to death. Then I 
stepped in and confessed, — for which they mit- 
igated my punishment and made it exile for 
life. But I came back from Australia as a 
picked-up castaway, on the vessel which took 
me out. The captain is dead now, so there’s 
no harm in saying that he was a friend, and 
arranged it all in advance. And right under 
the nose of the Law I took up my medical 
studies in London. I never cared much about 
chemistry after the fluke at Boyne-water, but 
I gave myself to the new thing then, — elec- 
tricity.” 

Dr. Morton’s voice and manner changed, as 
music sometimes changes suddenly, from the 
proud and defiant to the soft and sad, moving 
you to tears without your knowing why. 

“I gave my heart,” he said, “to a perfect 


104 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

woman, — a nurse in the hospital where I was 
house-surgeon.” 

He turned his hand and touched the spring. 
The golden gates swung open. The astral 
fragrance filled the air. 

“The one glory of my life is that she loved 
me,” he said; and distinct as his voice I heard 
those other words, “I cannot love.” 

Trembling in the torture, I said: “Go on, 
Morton. Go on with your story.” 

He looked at me. Then he slowly closed 
the gates. 

“What is it, Willard?” he asked at length. 
“Is there something in you that is hidden from 
all eyes? Your cursed self-control is a wall 
as solid as this about us. Looking in, I see 
only a polished chamber. Looking out, at 
mysteriously magnifying perforations, you see 
me through and through. There is only one 
fact about you which I seem to grasp: I be- 
lieve that you are my friend.” 

“Morton,” I cried, catching his hand, “I 
am your friend. For life and death I am your 
friend. You know me better than I know 
myself, but when you have finished your story 
I will tell you everything under Heaven you 
may care to know about me.” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 105 

“Which shall be that so long as I merit your 
friendship I shall receive it — nothing more,” 
he said. “Forget this little interruption. 
You often perplex my comprehension and this 
time my tongue clothed with words the 
thought which should have remained naked 
in my brain. Forget it.” 

Taking his hand from mine and laying it 
on the shrine, he said: “Her mother died 
when she was born. Her father was a peer, — 
poor as poverty and only at home in bad com- 
pany. When she was eighteen, beautiful, and 
by some miracle pure as Purity, her father 
sold her to a wreck on the shoals of debauch- 
ery, but one possessed of a fortune which he 
coveted. She had been kept in such seclusion 
that there was no one to whom she could turn ; 
but one of her father’s friends who seemed to 
her a better sort, — better by comparison, per- 
haps, — found her sobbing, induced her to con- 
fide in him, then to fly with him to his mother. 
It was an old plot. There was no mother. 
His housekeeper played the part and finally 
persuaded her that her only escape was to 
marry the one with whom she had fled. It 
was a mock marriage, the truth of which she 
only discovered months later, when his wife 


io6 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

returned from abroad. She fled to her father, 
but he turned her away, — penniless upon the 
world, in woman’s greatest extremity. The 
baby died; but where and what happened 
afterward till she came as nurse to the hospital 
I never knew. Her identity and history were 
hidden, I think from everyone. What I have 
told you I learned from her own lips, but she 
never knew that she told me. I already loved 
her as I did not suppose a man could love, and 
she trusted me with a confidence which was 
unmistakable; but whenever I tried to speak 
of love, every energy in her was alert to stop 
me. 

“She suffered from insomnia, induced by an 
internal trouble resulting from her history, 
which she did not admit to anyone till it had 
reached the gravest proportions. Often in the 
midday rest she asked me to put her to sleep, 
as I frequently treated restless patients, to 
avoid anaesthetics. I only knew what I had 
discovered by myself about hypnotism, and one 
day, through some freak action, she began 
talking rapidly. Before I realized that she 
was not conscious she had told me what I have 
told you. I understood her then, and all the 
more, for pity, I loved and worshiped her. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 107 

She had a beautiful voice, and many an hour 
we spent together with music. To please her 
best I played the ‘Ninth Sonata.’ To please 
me most she sang the ‘Resurrection Hymn.’ 
I accompanied her on the organ the last time 
I ever touched one until last night. 

“But at length she was forced to tell me of 
her trouble, when it had reached a point where 
death was inevitable unless her life could be 
saved by one of the most difficult and danger- 
ous operations then known to surgery. At 
that time not one in ten had survived, and there 
was not one record of complete recovery. I 
told her the situation truly, and that there was 
but one man living whom I would trust to 
perform the operation. I told her that I loved 
her, and on my knees I begged her to marry 
me first. She was not frightened. She put 
her hand in mine and said: ‘There is only 
one man whom I will trust. Unless he will 
perform the operation I would rather die. If 
he will, I think he will succeed ; and if he does, 
and comes to me again as he has come to-night, 
I feel sure that I shall be able to tell him that 
because I love him I will be his wife.’ 

“No pleading would change her and I went 
away to prepare for the operation. I had 


108 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

never even seen it performed, but for two days 
and a night I studied it, as I never studied be- 
fore. I bought this for our wedding ring — I 
was educated in the strictest form of Christian 
faith — and dipped it in holy water and put 
it on this finger, to prevent the hand from 
hurting her. And all that last night long I 
was on my knees, storming the Mercy Seat as 
God was never assailed before, offering 
Heaven every breath of life and every drop 
of blood in me, if God would only help me 
through that operation. She was brought to 
the operating room unconscious. I dared not 
for my life look into her face, but centered 
every faculty on the blue point of steel as it 
went deeper and deeper, till in the tension of 
the operation I wholly forgot who it was upon 
the table. I forgot everything but that blade 
as I watched it creep for inches along a throb- 
bing artery, where the deviation of a hair to 
one side was death, to the other an unsuccessful 
operation. I worked on, oblivious, till the 
operation was finished and the patient saved. 
And even then I did not realize whose life 
was saved. The attendant, seeing me spong- 
ing out the wound, preparing to close it, re- 
lieved the chloroform. The patient was not 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 109 

conscious, she was only partly coming out. I 
still held a knife in one hand, over the open 
wound, as I turned for a fresh sponge, when 
in a choking, unconscious gurgle the poor girl, 
even then thinking of me, tried to sing ‘Ho- 
sanna in the highest.’ O my God! I gave 
a frightful start as I remembered. I dropped 
the knife. I clutched for it and caught it, but 
not till it had pierced the artery, and a 
spurt of her death-blood spattered over my 
hand.” 

Morton’s face was drawn — and so was mine 
— in that awful agony. Then he shook him- 
self, and suddenly his tone and manner 
changed back to that bravado I had so often 
seen and so poorly understood. 

“I didn’t faint or do any fool thing, to be- 
tray me,” he went on. “It was success which 
proved too much for me. I was prepared for 
failure. I knew that I had killed her, but 
that if no one else suspected it she would be 
taken to her room and die there unconscious 
of it all. To-day we should still have tried 
to save her, but then every one would have 
pronounced it impossible. I caught the spot 
quickly, to prevent its showing, and left the 
forceps in, closing the wound myself, so that 


IIO THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

my assistant should not know. But when they 
had carried her away, and my junior and the 
nurses came up to congratulate me, it was too 
much. I tore of! my operating coat, flung it 
in their faces, and ran — Heaven knows where. 
I had left a vial on my mantel to drink its 
contents quickly, if I failed in the operation. 
I started to get it; but when I realized any- 
thing about myself again I was working before 
the mast, on a sailing ship, eight weeks out 
from London. I could do it, for I had made 
the voyage to Australia and back in a wind- 
jammer. But how I came there, or what trans- 
pired at the hospital when they discovered, I 
have always tried, successfully, not to know. 
Probably in my peculiar condition the poison 
twisted my brain instead of killing me; and 
to avoid a scandal at the hospital, I fancy, they 
shipped me on a ten months’ obliterating voy- 
age before the mast. They gave me a potent 
hint that they did not want me back, for in one 
of two boxes they sent with me they had 
packed all my degrees, my instruments, and 
the best of my books. The ring was still on 
my finger. It has never since been off. 
Neither has that hand ever again made an- 
other fatal slip. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE in 


“I left the ship on the home voyage, for I 
had no intention of going back to London. I 
wandered about, doing whatever came to hand 
for bread. I drove a little one-horse car on 
Fourth Avenue in New York. I worked as 
stoker in the coal-hole of the steamer which 
brought me here. But in the fury of a hurri- 
cane, up in iced shrouds* in the hubbub of that 
dirty street, or facing the white heat of the 
furnaces, something, catching me off my 
guard, would flash that falling knife before 
me, or I would feel the warm blood spurt 
across my hand, and go again through all that 
damned, infernal accident, killing the woman 
who loved me, after a miracle had saved her 
life. While we were lying at the pier here 
some evangelists came alongside, and sang a 
song with that hosanna in the chorus. I 
heard it and the ship could not hold me. I 
wandered from bar to bar till my legs would 
not carry me. I fell down in a vacant lot, 
and lay groaning, — too much a coward to kill 
myself, for the fear of some future where the 
terror would still haunt me. Later I built the 
sailors’ hospital on that lot. I told you it was 
not philanthropy when you were glorifying 
me for the act. It was simply to obliterate 


1 12 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

the spot where every time I passed I seemed 
to see myself. 

“It was the night of the last great earth- 
quake here. I watched the buildings crum- 
ble, and fall, and burn, and people tortured 
and dying by hundreds; but it only amused 
me — till suddenly the thought came to me that 
some one probably loved each one of them and 
would be glad to have them saved. It was 
like handwriting on the wall to me. I was on 
my feet in an instant, working like a maniac, 
mad with joy that if she knew she would real- 
ize that at last I was doing something to atone. 
They had it everywhere that I was performing 
miracles. They dragged me here and there 
to suffering friends, as if I were a god. And 
when the worst was over I had only to register 
my papers and open an office, to be over- 
whelmed with business, which has never fallen 
off, no matter what prices I charge to try and 
check it. 

“I was four years building this house, from 
the stone taken from these excavations. To 
protect her face, which more than all the 
world I prized, I had this dome excavated 
from the very heart of the rock ; and if man can 
defy Nature I think I have defied the earth- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 113 

quake here. The Irish word ‘Muckross’ 
means Rock of Rest; and for that I chose it. 

“What? Kate at the tube? Is it after nine 
already?” He listened a moment, then, 
laughing, added: “Good old cataleptic in- 
sanity. The man has done just as I told him 
to. Now, when I see him alone and confess 
that it was all a joke, to punish him for the 
joke he played on me, he’ll do one of three 
things, — kill me, kill himself, or lend his 
brain to our experiments. Let us hope.” 
And laughing still, he left the Den. 


CHAPTER XIII 


S time went on I realized more and more 



ii the folly of having forced my prejudices 
against liquor and opium on Dr. Morton. But 
he stubbornly repelled every effort on my part 
to retract; and in spite of his increased suffer- 
ing and his enormous practice, he worked with 
such zeal in his laboratory that success after 
success crowned his efforts ; and volumes will 
shortly be written upon the marvelous results. 
But he bent more and more under the burden. 

He returned one day to dinner with the un- 
mistakable lines contracting his face. He left 
the table early, saying to Kate: “I have im- 
portant work to-night, requiring solitude. I 
must not be disturbed. I am going to the 
Den.” 

It was the first time since I came to Muck- 
ross that he had not insisted upon my company, 
if there was the chance of his being alone. 
The pigmy was assuming his right propor- 
tions at the very moment when the Man most 
needed an efficient friend. I went to my 
room. An hour or more later Kate ran in, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 115 

without knocking, and caught my arm, whis- 
pering: “ He is in the snuggery. The doors 
are shut. He is groaning terribly. Come 
quick.” 

“His morphia tube and syringe, Kate,” I 
said. She shuddered, but brought them from 
his room, and we went down together. At the 
rear door of the snuggery I paused. What 
had I to do in there? I dared not open it. 
Only his supreme courtesy had ever brought 
me within reach of him. Then a deep groan 
like a knife pierced me, and I flung open the 
door. Morton was coming toward me. His 
face was shriveled and yellow. His eyes were 
bloodshot and staring. He paused for an in- 
stant; then, with a savage grin, he crouched 
like a wild beast, preparing to spring at me. 
Fortunately I forgot myself; for if I had hesi- 
tated then, I doubt if I could have withstood 
him long enough to call for help. I flung out 
my hands and ran to him, exclaiming: 

“Morton, old man, what a lark you are hav- 
ing!” 

Before he could recover I had grasped his 
wrists. My normal strength was nothing to 
his, but though he struggled and fought and 
shouted and groaned, dragging me about the 


ii6 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

room while chairs and tables went crashing 
to the floor, I clung desperately to his wrists, 
with my eyes fixed on his, hoping for some 
gleam of sense to which I might appeal. Then 
a strange thing happened. There suddenly 
came back to me the dream which so disturbed 
me after my first night in the Den. I had 
been through that identical struggle in my 
sleep. But the dream went further, and in- 
stinctively, without a thought of why, I fol- 
lowed it. Bending forward, I said sharply: 

“Sleep, man! Sleep! I command you, 
sleep!” 

Nothing that he could have done would 
have startled me as it did to see those swollen 
eyelids quiver and close, and to feel the mus- 
cles of his arms relax and his hands hang limp 
and motionless from mine. I stood there 
panting and helpless, when Kate came up and 
said, “Thank God, sir, you have hypnotized 
him.” 

I? Hypnotized the great Morton? Hyp- 
notized a raving maniac? Impossible. I 
could not believe it. I dared not drop his 
wrists and was in mortal terror lest my voice 
should rouse him. Yet I tried to recall his 
methods when many a time I had seen him 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 117 

resort to hypnotism, and to do as I would if 
he were really hypnotized. 

“You are going to your room now,” I said 
slowly. “You will lie down and remain asleep 
till your clock strikes nine in the morning. 
Then you will wake up well and strong and be 
happy and hungry.” 

While I was trying to think of what else 
to say he turned, like one walking in the dark, 
and went to his room. There he dropped at 
once upon the divan, profoundly unconscious. 
In my confusion I had forgotten to include 
instructions about undressing; and lest we 
rouse him now, we simply did what we could 
to make him comfortable, left one light burn- 
ing, and watched by turns outside his door all 
night. We were both there, I at least in mor- 
tal terror, when his clock struck nine. First 
there was an incoherent sound, then a natural 
voice, saying nothing less than, “Jumping 
Moses!” 

Presently Kate’s bell sounded, and as she 
hurried in he said: “Surely I wasn’t drunk 
last night, but I never went to bed at all. And 
see that light! Been burning all night. And 
why is not breakfast ready? It is late, and I 
am hungry.” 


ii8 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“Won’t you have your bath first, as usual, 
Doctor?” Kate asked. 

“Did I say bath, or breakfast, Kate?” 

“You said breakfast, Doctor.” 

“When I ask for fish would you give me 
scorpion?” 

“Fish is it? Do you want fish for break- 
fast, Doctor?” 

“Kate, I want breakfast — and I want it now. 
And no flounced menu, with scrambled air on 
toasted shadows either.” 

“I’ll hurry the girls right along and have it 
in a few minutes, Doctor.” 

“Which is where you lose out, Kate; for I 
shall not be here to eat it. I have an appoint- 
ment with a patient at half past nine. I’m 
afraid I shall have to operate, and Vinton is to 
be there to help me. Here, button my collar. 
If I hadn’t had that appointment on my mind 
to wake me up, I — See here. Rush down 
and get me a cup of coffee and something cold. 
I’ll eat it while Sam’s coming with the 
brougham. Then call the fellow across the 
hall and tell him to sleep another hour. By 
that time I’ll be back for my bath and the best 
breakfast you can muster. Hurry.” 

At the late breakfast the Doctor’s face was 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 119 

•a new study. For the first time his eyes were 
restless and inquisitive. “At the hospital yes- 
terday,” he said, “I saw a surgeon drop a knife 
into an open wound. It knotted every nerve 
in me. After dinner I found the Den too 
small for me and came up for my hat, to go 
out on the street. Kate was in the hall, and 
to avoid her I went into the snuggery and shut 
the door. The next I knew my clock was 
striking nine this morning, and I was lying 
dressed on my divan, — nerves steady, head 
clear, temperature normal, a whale’s appetite, 
and none of the after symptoms of morphia. 
But my syringe case, which since the night I 
decided to give up using it has been at the bot- 
tom of my drawer, was right on top. I have 
no recollection of using it — or of anything else. 
I wonder whether, if you chose, you could 
throw any light on the subject.” 

I was too hopeful of my discovery to be 
wise. “You did not use the morphia, Doc- 
tor,” I said. “I know, for I went to you in the 
snuggery.” 

“I thought so !” he exclaimed. “Only it was 
so vague — like a dream.’ 

“It might well be,” I replied. “You were 
in a bad way. It was only by a bit of good 


120 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

fortune that you took my advice and went to 
your room.” 

“Good fortune! That is a new name for 
hypnotism, isn’t it?” he asked, startling me 
with clear evidence that the idea was intensely 
obnoxious to him. Then instantly he changed 
the subject. 

“Now that we have succeeded in disintegrat- 
ing electricity,” he said, “we have only to de- 
velop our instruments, to do away with the 
entire pharmacopeia — except its antitoxins — 
through the red current which we have cap- 
tured, and when we can control the blue cur- 
rent I believe we shall find in it a specific for 
all germ disorders, free from the overreach- 
ing which renders the X-ray and radium so 
treacherous.” 

Then as abruptly he turned back again, say- 
ing: “I fully appreciated your hypnotic 
power over me at the philharmonic concert and 
at the Cathedral, and it was hardly possible for 
me to believe, our first night in the Den, that 
you did not yourself realize the fact. It still 
seems as if you must have some conception of 
your responsibility for that Easter sermon.” 

“How could I, when I had none?” I ex- 
claimed. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 121 

“My friend,” he said slowly, “when you 
came up behind me on the street that Sunday 
morning, you wanted something.” 

“I did,” I replied; and shuddered to re- 
member what it was. 

“I was turning round to meet you when you 
said, ‘You will follow that boy, and I shall 
follow you.’ ” 

“I thought something of the kind, but I did 
not speak,” I said. 

“That is your way of putting it,” he replied. 
“I certainly heard; for it went against me, but 
I obeyed. You sat down by the pillar and 
said, ‘We will perform a miracle on that boy.’ 
I did my best at dragging vital forces from 
everything about us and driving them into his 
torpid brain. And at last we succeeded, very 
much to my surprise. It opened a new world 
to me, showing me what instruments could be 
made to do. But before I had gathered my- 
self together from the exhaustion you said 
about the sermon: ‘What rot. Take your 
eyes off your cane and look at the priest, while 
we hammer some sense into him.’ ” 

“Doctor!” I exclaimed. 

Without noticing me, he continued: “I 
had not heard a word of the sermon, so I lost 


122 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

whatever point you made. But I realized the 
astounding possibility of thought transference 
through a second brain to a third. The mo- 
ment I looked up the priest stopped. Then 
the word ‘science’ came into my brain and 
sounded from his lips. More followed, and 
when I began to grasp the meaning of them, 
put together, it gave me a good shock — for I 
was born a Roman Catholic. I believed you 
were the Devil himself, making me his cat’s 
paw. It was intensely interesting, or I should 
have repudiated you, on the spot. Your Mind 
was working in my brain, to take advantage of 
a certain knack which I possessed, which you 
fancied that you lacked, while you possessed 
the courage of convictions which it was no 
fancy to suppose that I lacked. You yourself 
have the ability, whenever it is necessary. All 
that you really lack is my conscious faculty 
for exhibition purposes. You driving, in the 
same way, we have made a strong team ever 
since, but now that you have at last discovered 
your power over me, and made intelligent use 
of it, I must warn you never again to repeat 
the operation. A doctor seldom cares to take 
his own medicine, and the only real thing 
upon which a man prides himself, — espe- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 123 

dally an Irishman, — is his inherent individu- 
ality.” 

Over his face came an expression I had 
never seen before. His eyes seemed to narrow 
into piercing points. I realized that my use- 
fulness was at an end. The look lasted but a 
moment. Then he asked: 

“How came the syringe out of place?” 

“I took it with me to the snuggery,” I said. 
“And later I threw it into the drawer where 
Kate told me it belonged.” 

“I did not make that promise just to please 
you, Willard,” he said. “And while I have 
my senses I shall not break it to please 
you.” 

I should have left Muckross at once but for 
Kate’s pleading, for he seemed in constant fear 
of me from that moment, and was suspicious 
of every act. He failed so rapidly, however, 
that I had not long to wait. He sat one even- 
ing at dinner, unable to eat. Soon, looking at 
neither of us, with a distorted grin, he said: 
“I’m going to the Den alone. There’ll be a 
jolly good surprise ready for you there in the 
morning, Willard.” 

Kate, from behind his chair, looked at me. 
We knew the surprise which would await us 


124 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

in the morning if he went alone to the Den 
that night. I struggled for my life to speak, 
but my lips would not move. He was prepar- 
ing to rise when he saw my earnest look fixed 
on him, and shaking his fist at me he shouted, 
“Damn your eyes, Willard! I’ll — ” the rest 
was lost in a guttural gurgle. He sat there as 
rigid as iron, and utterly unconscious. 

“Is it the end, Kate?” I said. 

“No, no, sir,” she whispered. “You have 
hypnotized him again. Where there is life 
there is hope.” 

“In what?” I asked. 

“His instrument. The new one, that makes 
you forget.” 

I looked from Kate to the motionless figure, 
the clenched fist still in the air, the rigid fin- 
gers which alone could manipulate the play- 
thing of his brain. 

“No one else can operate it, Kate,” I said. 

“No one but you, sir,” she said. “You can 
try. I will help you all I can. No one shall 
ever know it if we fail. We must try, or 
let him die, sir, right here in his chair. I 
think we ought to try.” 

She was even struggling to smile through 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 125 

her tears; but as I looked, a cloud came be- 
tween us, obscuring them both. Upon it I 
read a sentence of three words, in letters of fire. 
Then it disappeared. 


CHAPTER XIV 


I T was madness to consider Kate’s sugges- 
tion, and worse to gather courage from a 
psychic demonstration flashed on my excited 
brain; but the best medical counsel would 
have consigned him to a padded cell, to die 
in agony, and us to perdition had \ve suggested 
the use of the paralyzer. However, from the 
moment when I read those three words I knew 
that I was to be but an agent for his Mind, and 
that I must do it. 

I went to him and took his hand in mine. 
Speaking slowly I asked, 

“Can you understand me, Doctor, and an- 
swer me?” 

Instantly the muscles relaxed, and like one 
speaking in his sleep, hardly moving his lips, 
he repeated those three words, “Physician, 
heal thyself.” 

He seemed to understand my thoughts, with- 
out words, and did his best to help us as we 
guided him to the operating room, where of 
himself he went to the chair to which the par- 

126 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 127 

alyzer was attached. His eyes remained 
closed. His face was leaden and expression- 
less. He looked like one already dead. But 
he took the cap in his hands and put it on his 
head, carefully adjusting the needles. Then 
his hands fell like dead weights to the arm- 
rests. 

Trembling with fear, I connected the disin- 
tegrator and opened the valve. Slowly the 
indicator crept up the gauge. 

“Fifteen. Stop.” 

It was like an automaton producing sounds 
resembling words, but it came from the Doc- 
tor’s throat and at the instant when the indi- 
cator touched fifteen, I shut off the battery, 
but another fear beset me. His eyes were 
closed and from where he sat he could not 
have seen the gauge, even if they had been 
open. He was seeing through my eyes and 
it was as easily possible that my fear was in- 
fluencing him. I had seen him experimenting 
and operating with the gauge at forty. 

“Fifteen is very weak, Doctor,” I said; and 
my voice sounded as strange as his. Again the 
sounds replied : 

“So are the cells. In an hour they would 
have collapsed. Let me sleep four days; then 


128 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

rouse me and we shall know if it is too late.” 

I wondered if I only thought I heard the 
sounds, but Kate heard them. I looked at 
her. 

“Do as he says. We must,” she whispered. 

My finger touched the button for the final 
act, but I did not dare to press it, when a 
clearer, sharper voice said: “Go on! I see 
the knife! O Constance! Constance!” 

The last words were a frantic cry, just as 
the current touched the brain. Perspiration 
ran like rain down my forehead as, gripping 
myself, I held my finger on the button through 
ten seconds, which seemed eternity, while the 
indicator crept back to zero. Then I removed 
the cap and Dr. Morton’s head fell helplessly 
back upon the rest. I thought that he was 
dead, but I had done my best and stood look- 
ing sadly into that strange, impassive face, 
where there was nothing, even in death, which 
I could comprehend, till Kate, laying her hand 
upon his forehead, said: 

“He is not dead, sir. You hypnotized him 
in the dining-room. He must still be under 
the influence. Perhaps he can help us to get 
him to his room.” 

He did help us a little, and for four days 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 129 

and nights I sat beside his bed, while brave, 
heroic Kate was everything to us both. Pa- 
tients and callers were easily turned away at 
first with the statement that Dr. Morton was 
not well ; but later Muckross was stormed with 
inquiries amounting to ill-concealed demands, 
as the rumor got abroad that the trouble was 
serious. Newspapers published astonishing 
manufactures about the mysterious illness of 
the world’s greatest neurologist, commenting 
on the fact that not one of his fellow practi- 
tioners was in attendance. It was in threaten- 
ing clouds that the last hour of the four days 
came. 

Kate carefully removed all signs of a sick- 
room, and waited outside the door. I sat on 
the bed, holding Morton’s hand in mine, with- 
out an idea of what I ought to do to rouse him, 
dreading the result, when I should have suc- 
ceeded. It might be but a faint flutter of 
life, subsiding in actual death ; but there might 
be a frantic struggle of the Mind to grasp 
again a shattered brain, and the life might go 
out in torture and suffering. Fondling the 
nerveless hand, I even wondered if it might 
not be better to try and keep what little re- 
mained as it was rather than lose him alto- 


i 3 o THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

gether. However, in a weak voice I began: 

“The time is up, Doctor. When you wake 
you will feel well, and strong, and happy. 
You will have no pain, nor trouble. You will 
not remember anything since you left the hos- 
pital. You must open your eyes now, and — ” 

Had I spoken to an Egyptian mummy and 
seen it instantly obey those words, open its 
eyes, look clearly, intelligently, lovingly, into 
mine and smile, I could not have been better 
stunned. My face showed it. The smile dis- 
appeared from Morton’s lips, and he said, 
“I say, Willard, are you a ghost, or is it one 
you see?” 

“Neither, Doctor,” I replied, trying to pull 
myself together. “You came from the hospi- 
tal so ill that I was frightened. Are you all 
right again?” 

“Right as the bank,” he said. “It was the 
worst case of goiter I ever struck; close along 
the jugular for inches, so that my nose was 
tight over the chloroform all the time. It 
stupefied me a bit, and right at the end of the 
operation the big vein made a fool jump and 
ran into the point of my knife before I could 
dodge it. The blood spurted all over me, but 
I caught the spot in time and saved the worn- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 131 

an’s life. She will be about again in a week, 
and never know how near she came to knock- 
ing at the pearly gates for Peter. I did worse 
than that once long ago. Oh, you remember, 
I told you how I spoiled a dandy operation on 
a nurse in the hospital in London. But I say, 
boy, brace up! You’re white as a sheet. 
Why, I never felt better in my life. The big 
dose of chloroform sent me into a long sleep 
which has done me worlds of good. And, by 
the way, how goes the enemy? Ring for 
Kate. I’m hungry.” 

He raised himself on his elbow, looked at 
his clock, and said: “Ten to eight? What 
eight is that? Is it last night or to-morrow 
morning? Gangway, my boy. I must be 
off.” 

I had not even strength to reply, but again 
Kate came to the rescue. Entering with her 
imperturbable assurance, smiling as she said: 
“You don’t get up the night, Doctor, take my 
word. It’s time you experienced the pleasure 
of which you give so much, — of being kept be- 
tween sheets. Your dinner will be served up 
here as soon as it can be got.” 

“Hear that?” the Doctor said. “You’d 
think I had a wife instead of a housekeeper. 


132 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

In the meantime I’m getting up. You can 
think that over, Kate.” 

“I’ll think over nothin’, sir,” Kate replied 
firmly, as she lowered the shades and turned 
on the light. “Mr. Willard is near death if 
you are not. For it’s not one day but four 
you’ve been there, and he has never left your 
side. ’Twould be an insulting shame to jump 
and run the moment you open your eyes, just 
as if you’d been fooling him. I’ll serve the 
dinner for the two of you, up here.” 

Dr. Morton dropped back on his pillow, 
bewildered by the announcement. But he was 
all right the next morning, and the press and 
the public agreed with him that the enforced 
rest had done him good. Kate and I watched 
in vain for any return of the old trouble. The 
little instrument had spoken its “Out, damned 
spot!” with the voice of authority even over 
its creator; but what haunted me was the way 
he spoke of the operation on the nurse in the 
London hospital. A sickening fear beset me, 
and I only waited for an opportunity to test 
the truth. It came when Dr. Morton sat on 
the floor of the snuggery, rollicking with Dick. 
I went to the organ, and when he was wholly 
off his guard I broke into the fatal strain of 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 133 

the “Resurrection Hymn,” singing as I played, 
“Hosanna in the highest! in the highest!” 

Without looking up he said: “You should 
sit on a sheet of paper, to reach that highest 
‘highest’ properly. That London nurse I was 
telling you about would get right up there and 
look over the top, without half trying. What- 
ever was her name, now? Blest if I can re- 
member.” And he went on playing with 
Dick. 

Instead of triumph, I was plunged into re- 
gret too deep for words. For the one real 
thing in Morton’s life was his love for that 
lost, that unforgotten girl. It permeated 
every ambition and impregnated every act. 
It warmed the neutral tints and softened the 
glaring lights in him. It was that which held 
him from the mire in which he had so often 
tried to hide himself. It was the far-reach- 
ing radiance of the beatific moment when I 
saw him at the organ which made him always 
unlike other men; and I had robbed him of it. 
My work had made the difference between 
those two sentences, — “The one glory of my 
life is that she loved me” and “Whatever was 
her name, now? Blest if I can remember.” 

The current from the paralyzer was guided 


134 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

by the patient’s fixing his Mind upon the 
thoughts he would forget, tempting it along 
those abnormally agitated threads, leaving 
them in complete paralysis, without other ef- 
fect upon the brain. It was easy enough to 
understand how his last cry of “Constance!” 
indicated that Dr. Morton’s thoughts were 
as much of the woman as of the accident, and 
how both centers, instead of only one, had been 
paralyzed. But what did it signify to know 
more than that it was done — and that I had 
done it? 

“You told me once that her name was Con- 
stance,” I said. 

“That’s right,” he replied. “Forgetting 
names is supposed to be an indication that one 
is growing old. But look at this bally little 
beggar, Willard. Old as he is, he has learned 
a new trick.” 

Down in the Den I tried again. After a 
long hunt for it I found the spring and opened 
the golden gates. Morton glanced at the face 
with a smile, remarking: 

“How horrified the world would be if it 
knew of the multitude of accidents which snuff 
out lives on the operating table. The best sur- 
geon never knows for sure what his knife is 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 135 

going to strike, even when he holds it fast. 
Of course it was stupid of me to drop one. 
But it was more stupid to let the accident 
bother me as it used to whenever I thought of 
it.” 

“Didn’t you tell me that you loved each 
other?” I asked. 

“I fancied so,” he said. “And if she had 
lived I presume we should have married and 
settled down in London — and all that Muck- 
ross stands for never would have been.” He 
shrugged his shoulders and lighted a ciga- 
rette — and almost said, “How fortunate.” 

Samson was shorn of his tresses. Morton 
was still a monarch, but the omnific charm 
was gone, — the charm that enhances the purest 
gold and gives luster to the brightest diamond, 
— Love. And it was I who did it. 

Woe to the world because of offenses. But 
woe unto him by whom the offense cometh. 
I might have settled down to bear this burden 
of remorse till my back became used to it, 
but Fate, — or the glove-button, — had further 
plans for me, and to expedite them an incident 
almost immediately plunged me headlong into 
new retribution which I could not endure in 
silence. 


CHAPTER XV 


D R. MORTON left me at the hotel one 
morning where I had an appointment. 
As I sat down in the waiting-room the only- 
other occupant remarked, “The man who came 
in with you looked enough like a man I used 
to know to be his twin brother.” 

“His name was Morton,” I replied indif- 
ferently. 

“That’s damned odd,” he added, turning his 
newspaper. “The man I knew was a Morton, 
— a Dr. Morton, — senior surgeon in a hospital 
where I was junior. He was years younger 
than I, byt, Jove! he was a corker. Went to 
pieces and disappeared from the face of the 
earth after as brilliant an operation as was ever 
performed. It was on one of the nurses, and 
I’m damned if the visiting surgeon, who took 
the case when Morton vanished, didn’t finally 
claim it, operation and all, and make eternal 
fame and fortune out of it.” 

The man had forgotten me. He was rumi- 
nating, talking to the toe of his boot, as he went 

136 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 137 

on : “It was the first case on record of a thor- 
oughly successful operation and complete re- 
covery. But the strain of it was too much for 
the boy. He went daft right at the operating 
table the moment he was through. Flung his 
coat in our faces and ran. We found him 
smashing in the door of his room, because it 
was locked and he hadn’t sense enough to turn 
the key. He was the strongest fellow I ever 
knew. It took six of us to get him into a 
strait-jacket, and we sent him right away to the 
nervine up north, in charge of two stalwart 
fellows. But when the train reached the des- 
tination, and the guard opened the door, there 
both men lay, sound asleep, and Morton gone. 
All that was left of him was his strait-jacket, 
neatly folded and laid on the seat. It was 
generally supposed that he committed suicide. 
He was raving when he left the hospital, — 
howling about a knife that was falling and kill- 
ing the patient, then wailing for a bottle of 
something; we couldn’t make out what.” 

“Did you say that the patient lived?” I 
asked. 

He turned to me in surprise. He had for- 
gotten that I was listening. 

“Lived?” he said. “She was at work in the 


138 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

wards again in three weeks. She is matron 
in the same hospital now. Why she stays God 
only knows. She’s the handsomest woman I 
ever saw. Many a nobleman has gone mad 
over her. When I was last home on leave, 
some howling swell was so determined to have 
her that, with the help of a friend, he got her 
into a cab one stormy night, pretending that 
an old patient was dying and wanted to see her. 
They bound and gagged her, and started out 
on a champion elopement, when some fellow 
on the street butted in and rescued her, and — ” 

“But what became of Morton?” I asked, 
perspiration starting on my forehead. 

“No trace was ever found of him — or of his 
luggage either, for that matter, for which I 
have kicked myself ever since. I packed his 
things and sent them with him, only to save 
him worry when he came to himself, — for he 
had some dandy books and instruments, some 
of them he’d made himself, and I’ve always 
wished I’d kept them. The guards swore they 
didn’t know anything about what happened. 
They were punished on the probability that 
he had suicided on their hands and that they 
had disposed of him some way. But I always 
believed them, for I knew that Morton was a 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 139 

perfect devil at hypnotism. He could put 
you to sleep, or make you obey him while you 
were awake, and without even looking at you. 
I’ve always believed he fixed those men, made 
them take off his jacket, get out his luggage, 
and then go to sleep. He had to be sane for 
that, but he might have gone raving again and 
killed himself, and some one who saw it might 
have buried him and kept his luggage.” 

The man I was waiting for came in. I was 
obliged to go with him, and returning as soon 
as possible I found that my companion was 
surgeon on a battleship, then leaving the bay 
under sealed orders. 

I held my peace, for what else could I do? 
I had wrought such havoc that after his years 
of love and suffering it might even do more 
harm than good to tell Morton the wonderful 
news. And I had battle enough to fight out 
with myself. The first thoughts that came to 
me I would rather forget; but, after days of 
bitterness, I came to see that if I really loved 
her I must forever ignore the hope I cherished, 
and that if I really loved Morton I must undo 
the damage I had done. 

At first I thought of hypnotism. Morton 
had lost all fear of me and all suspicion. If 


140 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

possible we were closer friends than ever and 
one night in the Den I referred to his claim 
that I had power over him. He insisted that 
he was right, and told me to go ahead and 
prove it then. He suggested ways to me and 
did all in his power to throw himself under 
my influence, but I could not produce the first 
result. Laughing, he repeated: 

“I insist that you have the talent, Willard, 
whenever there is a necessity. All that you 
lack is my tact for exhibition purposes.” 

I tried, by myself, to discover some counter- 
power in electricity, only to find how far be- 
yond me was the first step. Not till I was 
nearly discouraged did it occur to me to se- 
cure her aid. She thought him dead. How 
quickly she would come to him, if she knew 
the truth. I thought of a cable, then of a let- 
ter; but finally decided to go myself and fetch 
her. I had the right, for it did not pertain to 
love — to loving me. It was only a question 
of mortal man’s ability to go to the Woman he 
worshiped and plead for another man. I re- 
solved to try. Morton never asked questions. 
He accepted the fact that important business 
called me to London, only demanding that I 
should immediately return to Muckross. 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 141 

We sat together for my last evening in the 
Den, as ever discussing the subject of endless 
interest to both of us, — the progress of the 
work. 

“I suppose that it accords with the universal 
unfitness of things that we never come nearer 
to the Promised Land than seeing a little more 
and a little more from peaks of progressive 
Pisgahs,” he said. “First we struggled sim- 
ply for power to touch the brain with scientific 
certainty, and we obtained it. That demands 
that we divide electricity, and we did it, catch- 
ing the red current and training it for our 
purposes. Now we are goaded to catch the 
blue, which we believe will reconstruct just 
as the red destroys. As the red carries death 
to each damned spot we would wipe out, we 
are sure now that the blue will carry life to 
torpid functions, and even to the entire body 
until pectoral change has actually taken place; 
that we can say to the widow’s son, ‘Rise up 
and walk,’ and even to buried Lazarus, ‘Come 
forth!’ with the remaining probability of a 
third ingredient which will prove the vehicle 
of thought. Why, man! we shall be robbing 
hell of its victims, death of its sting, and the 
grave of its victory. We shall save humanity 


142 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

the necessity of throwing responsibility for suf- 
fering either upon the Devil or Omnific Love 
by showing it how easily all suffering can be 
avoided, that all evil is mental, — not moral, — 
and can be blotted from the world by mental 
sanitation as easily as malignant fevers are 
blotted out by common sense precautions. If 
there is a God, he will be grateful to us, Wil- 
lard, for proving that he is not culpable. And 
if there is a Devil, he is riding to his down- 
fall, covering your devoted head with curses.” 

I made an effort to interrupt him, as always 
when he fell into that line, — trying to shift his 
achievements to my shoulders. But he went 
right on : 

“Doing evil that good may come is at the 
root of all that we call crime. I know that 
according to the Scriptures it is also an attri- 
bute of God, from the installation of Satan to 
the climax on Calvary. But it is damnable, 
nevertheless ; and we shall wipe it out, together 
with the services of Satan, and any need of vi- 
carious salvation. The time cannot be far dis- 
tant now when we shall be prepared to give to 
the world a fully developed system, without 
the fear of a premature delivery which has 
been the death of so many an immaculate con- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 143 

ccption; and the nations dwelling in darkness 
shall see the spark which clicked on Franklin’s 
key kindle the fire in Hejaz, which in Bashra 
shall cause the camels’ necks to shine. I’ll do 
my best with the blue current while you’re 
away, Willard, and I’ll have good news for 
you when you return.” 

Then came his parting words, which to my 
heart, at least, bore all the sweet pathos of his 
strange but beatific life. He stood on the 
pavement as I entered the carriage. He held 
my hand in his, and said: 

“May all evil be far from you, and all good 
be with you, till we meet again.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


O N the voyage back to London I found that 
the fight had not been fought to the 
finish. All the dead dreams I had buried on 
the way out came up from the sea to change 
my purpose. The broad wings of the albatross 
flashed like flaming swords ready to close the 
gate of Eden behind me. The silent glare of 
the incessant sea was maddening. The flying 
fish shot always away from me. Mother Ca- 
rey’s chickens laughed as we reeled in the 
gale. The brown Cape-ducks and mottled 
gulls seemed piping me “ A thing outside.” 

I sent my card to the matron of the hospital, 
and waited in the nurses’ parlor, wondering 
if she would remember me, and if she remem- 
bered whether she would trust my promise 
and see me; and if she came whether I could 
keep it. I knew that if just once I could feel 
her arms about me and hear her say, “Beloved, 
I can love you now,” I could die in a delirium 
of joy; but could I plead with her for him? 
She opened the door. The years vanished. 

144 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 145 

The fragrance of the rose engulfed me. I 
dared not look above the perfect hand she gave 
me. She said: 

“I hoped that some day there would be a 
service which I could render you in a slight 
return for what you did for me, and that you 
would come and tell me.” 

I could not speak. In another instant I 
should have been upon my knees. 

“What is it that I can do for you?” she 
asked. 

I had forgotten why I came. I thought, 
and stammered, “You remember — yes, of 
course you remember Dr. Morton?” 

Her hand slipped from mine. She mo- 
tioned me to a chair and seated herself on the 
other side of the room. Astonished, I glanced 
at her face. It was flushed. The lips were 
compressed. Her eyes had changed. In a 
voice that was wholly unlike her own she 
said: 

“I knew him when he was connected with 
this hospital.” 

“He is still alive!” I exclaimed. 

“One would be poorly posted not to have 
read that he quickly recovered from his recent 
illness,” she replied. 


146 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“Pardon me, madam,” I said. “I am mak- 
ing a mistake. I came on behalf of Dr. Mor- 
ton, to find a nurse, Constance; and I thought 
that you were she.” 

“I am,” she replied. “And whatever you 
may ask of me for Dr. Morton I shall remem- 
ber that to both of you I owe my life.” 

“But, madam, he loved her and she loved 
him,” I exclaimed. 

“I shall remember. Can you not give me 
your errand?” she asked. 

I was almost beside myself. “I have been 
his closest friend ever since I left London,” I 
said. “I have seen him suffer through his love 
for you till it brought him to the door of death, 
in what you speak of so calmly as his recent 
illness. How can you — ” 

She stopped me. I do not know how; and 
after a moment’s silence she said: 

“In the years since then I have realized the 
shock it must have been to one like him when 
he discovered, as I lay on the operating table, 
what he had loved when he loved — me. I did 
not appreciate it then, or I should have saved 
him. That I too have suffered these white 
hairs testify. It cannot increase my willing- 
ness to respond to any reasonable request, to 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 147 

tell me that his life is still poisoned with bitter 
thoughts of me. Have I not now been frank 
enough, Mr. Willard, to avoid further de- 
lay?” 

In my confusion I said : “It was only upon 
one condition that you gave me the right to 
come back to you — else how many times and 
for how long I should have been here, plead- 
ing for myself! I did not know until three 
months ago that you and he had ever met. I 
believed with him that the one he loved had 
died from the operation. Until this minute I 
thought that you believed him dead. Now, 
by my love for you, through all these years — 
when I have proved it by keeping away, 
though to do it I had to leave London — be- 
cause I love you still — madly, desperately love 
you — believe me, oh, believe me, when I say 
that you are making some terrible mistake. It 
would be utterly incomprehensible to him— 
what you say about his making a discovery 
leaving bitter thoughts of you. I love you, 
madam, and I love him. I am trying to be 
loyal to you both — Heaven only knows how 
hard it is. Will you not, in mercy, tell me 
what you mean?” 

She sat with her eyes fixed on the floor, flush 


148 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

and pallor alternating. Suddenly she looked 
up and said: 

“I told you that you must not love me, be- 
cause I could not love. I will answer your 
question for your sake, — not for his, because 
he needs no explanation. It will help you to 
forget me. I was never married. He knew 
it. But during the operation he discovered 
that I had been a mother. I knew that he 
would and intended that he should. I had 
tried in vain to tell him with my lips. I de- 
manded that he perform the operation, because 
I wanted him alone to know it. I did not 
realize its awfulness. I thought of circum- 
stances which seemed to me to mitigate; and 
I believed that when I told him of them after- 
ward he would pity and forgive me. I left 
a letter explaining them to him, in case I died. 
But neither did I die nor did he come to me. 
And as I lay, with time to think, I realized it 
all, and saw how impossible it would have been 
for him ever to have looked into my face 
again.” 

“But, madam,” I interrupted, “you surely 
know that he was utterly unconscious of what 
he was doing when he went away.” 

“I know that he made people think so,” she 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 149 

said. “He gave up the most brilliant career 
which London ever promised, and stole away, 
under the pretense of madness, rather than de- 
nounce one whom he had loved and who had 
deceived him.” 

“But he believes this minute that during the 
operation he made a slip, and that you could 
not possibly have lived an hour after the op- 
eration. Because he loved you so it drove him 
crazy. I tell you he did not even know his 
own name till weeks later, when he found him- 
self far away from London. And because he 
thought you dead he would not, for his life, 
come back. He made no discovery, as you 
think. Forget that I am a man. Remember 
only that I love you, and let me speak. He 
knew the whole story of your misfortune long 
before the operation. You told him once 
when you were in an hypnotic sleep. It was 
before he asked you to be his wife, and I have 
it from his own lips that he only loved you 
and respected you all the more. By an acci- 
dent I learned that the woman he loved was 
still alive — and that she was the Woman I 
worshiped. There were reasons why I could 
not tell him — why the only thing that I could 
do was to come to you. Listen to me — you 


150 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

must listen to me — while I explain them. 
Then you will help me.” 

“I will listen,” she said. But even after I 
had finished, her only answer was, “I am glad 
that all is well with him at last; and I am sure 
that matters should remain as they are.” 

“Oh, madam!” I cried. “Don’t send me 
back with that. Have you utterly forgotten 
that once, at least, you loved him too?” 

“He has forgotten,” she said. “Let us con- 
fine ourselves to him. It was only the morti- 
fication of a master that his hand had made a 
fatal slip which goaded a boy’s sympathy for 
the victim. He was right when he laughed 
over the boy’s infatuation after he had forgot- 
ten the chagrin. It would have had the same 
result if you could simply have told him that I 
did not die. And even if memory of those 
youthful pledges and his sense of honor had 
driven him to repeat his question, I should 
surely have told him No. For I realize now 
how unworthy I am to be his wife.” 

“Madam!” I exclaimed, angry over her 
calmness. “You have wrapped a holy love in 
swaddling clothes of abnegation, and buried 
it so deep in a manger, under straw of self- 
condemnation, that you see nothing but the 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 151 

blanket and husks which swine eat. True love 
looks into the future, — not into the past. Per- 
fect love casteth out fear. It does not grovel 
in gone blunders. The Goddess of purity is 
not on the accepted altar where the two-faced 
world kneels to bedizened Chastity. I know 
it! for I too love you. I worship you as a 
pure, white rose, without a thorn.” 

Then suddenly there came to me a thought, 
so simple, so in accord with the atmosphere of 
Muckross, that the wonder is it had kept so 
long away. No longer afraid, I knelt at her 
feet. I took her hands in mine. I looked 
into her eyes and said: 

“You are drifting on the very rocks where 
Morton was so nearly wrecked. Your Mind 
has fortified itself in those morbid centers be- 
yond the reach of any argument. I know that 
you are wrong and you would be glad to be- 
lieve me, if only for your own comfort. You 
might even try to accept my word, but it would 
not convince you. You are always vainly try- 
ing to drive the unhappy thoughts away. You 
dread old age, with the haunting memory 
growing stronger as you grow weaker, — as if 
by torturing it could help you. Would you 
not be glad to be rid of them?” 


152 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

Without hesitation she replied, “I would.” 

“Then that is why I came,” I said. “I 
thought it was for Morton, but really it was 
for you. The operation is as harmless and as 
effective as locking one door in these wards 
to prevent people from making themselves a 
nuisance by going that way. Morton is so 
sure that you are dead that you can most easily 
prevent his suspecting. Simply say to him 
that your memory clings to an incident caus- 
ing you needless suffering. Keep your face 
covered with a veil, if you like. He never 
asks a question, — not even a patient’s name. 
You will sit in a chair. He will place a cap 
on your head from behind, and tell you to fix 
your mind upon the thought that troubles you. 
In ten seconds, though you have felt nothing, 
he will remove the cap and tell you your trou- 
bles are over. He will instantly leave you and 
you can go out when you like. You will not 
have forgotten anything — not even how the 
thoughts used to trouble you. But you will 
think them through new channels. They will 
never annoy you any more. If I were for- 
tunate enough to do anything for you which 
warranted me in asking a favor, do this for 
me and I will leave the rest to you. I will 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 153 

not come to you again, but if, when it is over, 
you are willing to help me to restore to Dr. 
Morton the joy of which I robbed him, — the 
joy of loving you, — you will find me at Muck- 
ross.” 

To my surprise and joy, she said softly, “I 
will go to him.” 

I kissed the hands I held and went away, 
leaving her sitting there. 


CHAPTER XVII 


T HE voyage back seemed to my soul an 
endless ovation of triumphant song. 
The gulls softly sang ‘‘Hosanna!” The 
brown duck cut the curve of each blue upheav- 
ing as the tone swings in the grand refrain. 
The petrels filled the air with their weird 
chirping, — atoms in immensity, but part of 
it, part of its hosanna. The flying fish glis- 
tened in the joy of living, when the night is 
o’er. Through tropical days the blue waves 
whispered it, and the great albatross, their 
broad wings motionless upon the air, swung 
this way and that, as if they were Nature’s 
baton, beating time to “Hosanna in the high- 
est!” 

And at last I sat again in the dear old Den, 
with Morton across the onyx table. I had 
only arrived that afternoon. My luggage was 
not yet unstrapped. Every minute that could 
be wrested from patients had been spent in 
telling me of the marvelous progress made 
during my absence. 


154 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 155 

“It is finished!” Morton said. “Dear old 
boy, only think of our being able to say that 
word. But let me tell you: if I had realized 
that Easter Sunday that the sermon you 
preached through me was only an outline of 
work which you proposed to perform through 
me, I should have cried out, ‘It is impossible!’ 
Yet you have conquered. It is done. Science 
is all that you said of it. And how you have 
stuck to it till the last jot and tittle was accom- 
plished.” 

“You are getting confusion worse con- 
founded, Doctor,” I interrupted. “I have 
told you twice that I had no more to do with 
that sermon than the boy at your elbow; and 
I had less to do with what followed.” 

“Willard,” he said, “I have already proved 
that the contrary is true of part, and now, if 
you w T ill only listen, I will prove that it is 
true of all. I fought against the sentiments 
of that sermon all the voyage home; for I was 
in the grip of the hypnotic influence of Chris- 
tian ages. But I came to realize that you had 
laid on solid ground the only possible foun- 
dation for the structure I was trying to build 
in air. Science is omnipotent, because it is 
the delineator of the divine.” 


156 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

“Of course it is, Doctor,” I interrupted. 
“You taught me to see it. I wonder these 
very walls don’t laugh at you. You have la- 
boriously dragged out Nature’s secret, which 
suffering brains and bodies have waited long 
enough to learn. And you are the fittest man 
on earth to have done it, for you have not suf- 
ficient sense of self to gather a thread of flame 
from a blaze of glory, to make even a ring 
halo for your own cranium. Where other 
men would ride the clouds, like little gods on 
big tin wheels, because by accident they had 
hit upon a happy discovery, you limp along 
the pavement, out of preference, though 
Heaven’s own chariot of fire is waiting for you 
at the curb. So far it’s so good, old man; for 
you are really mightier, — as is any one, if he 
only knew it, — down upon the pavement than 
up in treacherous clouds. But when a tri- 
umph like this drives even you to an ecstasy 
which must have vent, and you try to shift 
it off on me so that you may have a back to 
pat, you’re taking a long step too far. If you 
should hint it outside this Den, your nearest 
friend would say that too much learning had 
made you mad. And he’d be right about it, 
too.” 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 157 

“I never heard you say so much at once in 
all my life,” Morton replied. “But now, if 
you have relieved yourself and can listen, I’ll 
produce my proof. When you came into the 
club that first night I was so disheartened that 
I was on the verge of suicide. The moment 
you looked at me you said, — of course I know 
that you will tell me now that you only said it 
to yourself, — but you said, so that I heard you : 
‘Shame on you, Morton; spending your time 
in drinking, smashing cues, and cursing. 
Shame!’ You made me invite you to dinner, 
but you said: ‘All this is superficial. Those 
whose outer doors stand widest open are the 
most likely to keep the real treasures of the 
house in all-proof vaults. Open the inner 
doors to me. I am here to know you and un- 
derstand you.” 

Thoughts which had flitted through my 
brain when I first came to Muckross he was 
repeating with the quiet assurance of one read- 
ing from a book. 

“So I opened doors for you. I told you 
about myself. I showed you my laboratory, 
with all its imperfect efforts at great ends. I 
reeled off pet fancies and vague dreams which 
I would have sworn that the tortures of an 


158 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

inquisition could not have dragged from me in 
their crude state. Even then I realized the 
help you were affording me, for my imperfect 
thoughts grew and gathered strength like 
mushrooms. Ideas were conceived, devel- 
oped, and delivered in a single conversation 
under your forcing process. But unfold as I 
would you were not satisfied. You kept on 
saying. ‘More. This is not what you really 
are.’ I rebelled when it came to the Den; 
for I had sworn no living man should enter 
here. But I brought you in. I tried to pac- 
ify you by showing you how you had oblit- 
erated dusty dogmas in me and taught me 
humanitarianism; but you were not pacified. 
I tried to distract you by performing my little 
trick with Kate; but by a single question to 
Kate you disclosed a gigantic problem, and 
set me to solving it. You were not distracted. 
You grew impatient, however, and, without 
so much as looking, you touched a spring that 
I would have defied you to find and opened 
those gates. ‘That is the door I meant,’ you 
said. ‘That is the secret of your life. Just 
now it is hampering you. See how you are 
cringing. But I will force you to control 
yourself this minute, and before long I will 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 159 

open those doors again and you will only 
smile.’ Well, you did it. You had caught 
me so unawares that the fiend was clutching 
my throat and choking me as never before. 
But in five minutes the whole effect had van- 
ished, — which never before had lasted less 
than hours. I could have taken my oath that 
morning that instead of being the Devil, as I 
thought you first, you were a god, performing 
miracles.” 

I might have laughed or cried over Mor- 
ton’s figment, — a combination of suggestive 
facts so singularly misinterpreted. But as 
usual he gave me no opportunity. He went 
right on : 

“Believe me, Willard, no more welcome 
guest has ever entered an open door; and ev- 
ery day has found me appreciating you better 
than the day before. But realizing your mis- 
sion I have fought you from start to finish. I 
hoped you would succeed, but — I am Irish. 

“That night in the snuggery I believed that 
I was doomed. I hated to leave the work un- 
finished. I knew that you could save me, and 
I could have fallen on my knees to you for 
help, but when I saw you coming I did my 
best to kill you. I confess it. The only 


160 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

thing that I do not understand is how I failed. 
You kept on staving off the end and pushing 
me on to greater efforts till at last it got me 
with such a fury that I gave up. I was tired 
out. I felt myself dying at the table, and only 
longed to get to the Den to die beside her 
picture. I saw you preparing to do some- 
thing, and I knew that while you lived I could 
not die. I made a break for you, determined 
to kill you. Four days later I found you sit- 
ting on my bed, fondling the hand that was 
thirsting for your gore. I also found myself 
free from that old torrent. It set me thinking, 
Willard, — patching the pieces of the puzzle 
together. Thinking is your specialty, — and a 
marvelous quality, when held back by your 
cold-blooded disinclination to jump at conclu- 
sions. I tried to emulate you. I thought till 
I had it all, and knew at what cost of mental 
nerve and physical courage and vital energy 
the friend whom I so loved and hated had 
stood by me, risking far more than his patient, 
suffering infinitely more, without even the 
compensation of intelligent gratitude.” 

“Morton,” I cried, “will you let up on that 
nonsense?” 

“Not while you call it nonsense,” he replied, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 161 

smiling. “The night when I came into that 
concert, against my will, where you had come 
from thousands of miles away, for no better 
reason, I saw nothing but you from the mo- 
ment I entered, and I kept my eyes on the 
floor lest I rush up and shake hands with you. 
You said to me: ‘Sit down by that fellow 
across the aisle. Let him touch the hem of 
your garment. We will begin right now.’ 
And we have been working together in the 
same way, — you driving, — ever since. I 
have been the machinery, but I needed you. 
You have always been the master, in com- 
mand ; but you needed me. Something in us 
forced us to find each other.” 

“Morton,” I said, “if consciously or uncon- 
sciously I have helped you, I am infinitely 
glad. But it makes me feel a fool to have you 
talk this way, when after all these years I 
could not manipulate your simplest instrument 
for even a trivial operation.” 

“The master of the bridge need not be an 
engineer,” he said. “Yet you did operate the 
most complex of them all ; and you succeeded 
in a case which I should have abandoned as 
beyond the possibility of success. Sit down 
again, Willard,” he said firmly, as I sprang 


162 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

to my feet. “When the blue current was 
caught, and the new reviver finished, and I 
found that it worked perfectly in restoring 
to normal action all baser forms of paralysis, 
I needed a case to test it on the delicate brain 
tissues, and I was so sure of my conclusions 
that I—” 

“Morton!” I cried. “Did you — ” 

“Easy, boy! Certainly I did,” he inter- 
rupted me. “I deliberately put my own head 
into the reviver cap, — proving my confidence 
in you and your ability. And the result not 
only proved the accuracy of the instrument but 
of my convictions concerning the courage, the 
skill, and the friendship of my friend. Either 
your current was very weak, or mine too 
strong. For a second my brain seemed on 
fire, and without the slightest intention, I 
shouted, ' Constance !’ But it all passed off 
and I felt no ill effects. It revived all right, 
however, for only yesterday for the third time 
an accident flashed that knife before me, and 
set me 'cringing. Evidently, through having 
been forced away so long, my Mind is not to 
be so free there as it was. I had myself under 
control in a moment. It is a valuable hint for 
us, in our treatment of the brain. But greater, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 163 

— infinitely greater, — than the relief from the 
suffering, Willard, was the joy of thinking 
again, as I used to think, of Constance and our 
love. It’s better, if you have loved and lost, 
to let the love linger than it is to forget to love. 
Only it has seemed to rouse in me a restless 
longing to be loved again by something tan- 
gible, — to live and love, like other men. Per- 
haps it was that feeling which influenced me 
to-day — or possibly I have not met before one 
who could have filled her place.” 

Reverently he touched the spring. The 
fragrance of the white rose, — but without the 
thorn, — drifted like pax vobiscum about me 
as I watched on Dr. Morton’s face the same 
expression which I saw that night at the organ. 

“I wonder why I long so to be loved again,” 
he said. And after a silence: “Last evening 
a patient came for an operation. I did not 
see her face, but ever since I have been long- 
ing to know more. Don’t look so troubled 
about it, boy. It has not seriously ruffled the 
even tenor of my way; and it was not a giddy 
girl. In fact, it was a white-haired woman. 
What? Worse yet? Your nerves are un- 
strung, Willard. It is not like you to show 
yourself in that way. Besides, it was only 


164 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

something in the atmosphere which attracted 
me, — only a feeling of loneliness which will 
pass off now that you are back. It was some- 
thing in her voice. She said that an incident 
she would forget disturbed her; and not an- 
other word. But the voice tingled all through 
me till — I couldn’t help it — I looked out of 
the window as she drove away. She came in 
one of 'Warden’s carriages. That is abso- 
lutely all there is to it, and I’ve told you so 
that you can turn it over in your cold-blooded 
way to-night, and let me know what you think 
in the morning.” 

“I’ve thought already, Morton,” I said, 
keeping my eyes fixed on the shrine, lest they 
betray me. “I think your patient was a lady 
who must have come from London by the 
other steamer, which got in a little ahead of 
mine, — a lady whom I met there and advised 
to come to you.” 

“What is the matter, Willard?” Morton 
asked anxiously, leaning over the table and 
laying his hand on my shoulder. “Is she a 
friend of yours, and do you think I would 
rob you of her if I knew?” 

I could not contain myself. I sprang to my 
feet, exclaiming: “Yes, Doctor. She is a 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 165 

friend of mine. Thank Heaven, she is my 
friend, and now she always will be. I went 
to London to fetch her, — to bring her back to 
you, — because she is — Constance! the Con- 
stance whom you love!” 

He started back, — one hand on his forehead, 
the other pointing toward the shrine. 

“Not that Constance?” he whispered. 

Catching his hand, to keep him while I 
spoke, I said quickly: “She is that Constance, 
Doctor. After I had robbed you of your love, 
I learned that she was still alive, completely 
recovered, and matron of the same hospital. 
I would not tell you, in the way you felt, so I 
went to London. I found her so tortured with 
remorse, — believing that you only discovered 
her secret while you were operating, and that, 
thinking she had deceived you, you pretended 
to be crazy, to get away without denouncing 
her, — that she had grown to think herself ut- 
terly defiled and unworthy of being loved. I 
could not shake her, but I forced her to prom- 
ise me that she would come to you, simply for 
that operation, to rid her of the constant tor- 
ture. Now, you can do the rest. Go to her 
quickly — and all good be with you till we 
meet again.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


S ITTING alone in the Den, I sang with 
my very soul : 

“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Sing, for the night is o’er! 
“Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna forevermore!” 

But suddenly it came to me that at last I 
knew the man! that I understood him; that 
my mission to Muckross was ended. For lo, 
the whole of life is love. It covers, it envel- 
opes, it engrosses everything. The ethereal 
theory of Omnific Love is all that holds men 
to religions. Loving and being loved is all 
that makes life worth living. From the Alpha 
of Time to the Omega of Eternity there is 
nothing if there is not Love. But where Love 
is, there is everything. 

Muckross was complete without me. I was 
only mortal, — only a man outside. I was glad 
it was so, but I could not be a part of the 
happiness I had so dearly bought. I must go. 
My luggage had not been unstrapped. I tel- 
ephoned for a cab, wept a parting tear with 

166 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 167 

Kate, gave Dick a parting pat, and in thirty 
minutes I was on an express, whirling through 
the night toward a distant port where the mail 
caught a departing steamer. 

Second thoughts, — homesick thoughts, — as- 
sailed me so fiercely that I was thankful when 
the lines were cast off and the strip of blue- 
black water widened between me and the pier, 
preventing my return. Only then a steward 
handed me a wire, languidly remarking that 
it came an hour before, but that he could not 
find me. It was from Morton, saying, “Come 
back, dear friend, if only for an hour. It is 
important.” Had I received that wire when 
it came, no power on earth could have dragged 
me alive from the pier. But the Fate which 
began with the off-come of my glove-button 
was now as clearly saying: “It is finished. 
Go.” 

I could not leave the place where I was 
standing, alone in the stern. Leaning on 
the rail, I watched the last line of land disap- 
pear, and the shadows of night sink upon the 
water. 

Passengers leave the decks early the first 
night at sea. Everything was deserted. I 
was alone with my thoughts of Morton — and 


1 68 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

of her. Suddenly I felt a presence and turned. 
“Morton!” I cried, and threw out my arms to 
embrace him. Then I staggered back against 
the rail, for my hands swept through empty 
air. He laughed that good old boyish laugh 
of his, saying: 

“If Willard himself will let his sense of 
touch defy his inner consciousness, what won- 
der that strangers doubt. My boy, the solid 
part of me is far away, clutching a couple of 
wires. Constance is at the generator. I 
wired you because I had caught the third cur- 
rent and harnessed it, and I wanted your help 
at demonstrating it a vehicle of thought. You 
did as you pleased as usual; and also as usual 
you helped better than if you had followed 
me; for here I am, frightening you half to 
death with the grand result of your instigation, 
developing my little trick wth Kate. 

“If you do not accept your own work, Wil- 
lard, how can you expect that others will ac- 
cept it? Is not instinct Nature’s opinion, and 
reason man’s perversion of it? When you 
dream do you not see, and hear, and feel, with- 
out the aid of your senses? Will no one ever 
believe what he knows to be true, if some ac- 
cepted theory seems to refute it? But tell me, 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 169 

Willard, why did you leave us when more than 
everything else we both wanted you?” 

“I don’t know, Morton,” I replied. “I did 
not want to. It had to be; and I suppose 
whatever is, is right.” 

“Oh, Willard, Willard,” he said, with a 
sigh. “Why do you cling so to the conven- 
tionality of words? Of all men you know that 
whatever is, is usually wrong. From the cra- 
dle to the grave we are combating things that 
are, to make them what they ought to be. 
Does the man who preached that Easter ser- 
mon tell me now that whatever is, is right? 
How deeply we are buried down in the ruts 
of this deep-rutted world. But, Willard, 
there is something more. How can I say it? 
I know. Constance has told me all. Could 
I have done the same for you? I am glad I 
was not tested. But Constance wants me to 
ask yet more of you. There seems to her a 
gulf between the old hospital times and to- 
day. She wishes that she knew all about our 
life together during the past strange years, to 
make her more one with us to-day. Will you 
not use the empty hours of the long voyage 
before you in writing out a record of it all for 
her? I know that you will — and may all 


170 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

good be with you always, and evil always far 
away.” 

Without another word — it was like him — 
he was gone. 


CHAPTER XIX 


W ALKING slowly down the deserted 
deck and through the social hall 
where only a single electric jet was left burn- 
ing, a piano tempted me, and pressing down 
the soft pedal I began to dream. I had never 
before dared to give my thoughts of her full 
freedom. But now that the past was gone 
beyond recall, attuned to the dream music, my 
thoughts set free reveled in sacred memories. 
Morton had told me once that when he would 
please her best he played the “Ninth Sonata”; 
and ever since the two, — that grandest of com- 
positions, “Consolation,” and the Woman I 
worshiped, — had seemed one. What she was 
among women the “Ninth Sonata” was in mu- 
sic, — a triumphant masterpiece. And it is lit- 
tle wonder that my fingers found it presently, 
and that the fragrance of the rose without a 
thorn filled the air with divine vibrations. 
Over and over the rolling theme stole from the 
strings, like the swell of the silent sea, bearing 


172 THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 

me away on its bosom, singing my sorrow to 
sleep, — soft, murmuring voice of the deep. 

Then suddenly there came over me a feeling 
which I remembered from those far-away days 
in the hospital when, before the door opened, 
I knew that it was she. She entered from the 
deck, in soft, silver-gray that was almost as 
simple as the matron’s uniform. The low 
light glistened on her snow-white hair. The 
radiant beauty of her face outwent all words. 
And even in that moment I noticed that at last 
she wore one ornament. Upon her perfect 
hand was Morton’s plain gold ring. 

She came toward me, but my fingers still 
clung to the keys, as if to lose those strains 
would be to lose her too. Her arms wound 
gently about my neck, and bending over me she 
whispered : 

“You did it all for me, because you loved 
me. Beloved, I can love you now.” 

While waiting in the nurses’ parlor I had 
said to myself that if once I could feel her 
arms, and hear her say those words, I could 
die in a delirium of joy. But as I sat alone 
again in the social hall, — alone with the silent 
piano, — I realized how much better I could 
live, knowing that they both loved me still be- 


THE DEVIL’S DISCHARGE 173 

cause each loved the other better than either 
could ever have loved me. 

So happily, after all, I came to my cabin 
and began, intending it for her eyes alone, this 
home-spun record of how Morton discharged 
the Devil, with what little help a paltry glove- 
button forced me, unconsciously, to afford 
him. 
























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